Mesh stops hens digging up the range
At this time of year the scratching, scraping and digging of several thousand hens’ feet can quickly turn a once-green range area into something resembling a battlefield from the Great War.
But not so at Paxcroft Farm near Trowbridge, Wiltshire, which is home to 13,000 free range hens belonging to the Oatley family. Try as they might, the hens cannot dig through the ‘ground stabiliser’ that BFREPA member Andy Oatley has put down in the area immediately adjacent to the hen houses.
Now in its twelve year the plastic mesh—bought from a local agricultural merchant and sold mainly for use in field gateways—is still going strong due to its virtually indestructible nature.
“It has certainly stopped the hens digging holes in the ground which would otherwise fill with water and provide the dirty puddles they relish drinking from. That’s probably never been more important than at present in light of the risk from AI,” says Andy, whose son Tom now runs the farm’s free range operation.
“The mesh also prevents the birds pulling the grass out by its roots and means the sward has a better chance of recovering in the spring.”
The Oatleys insist on regular rotation of the range area but this means picking up the ten by three metre strips of plastic and dragging them to a fresh position.
“It’s an expensive material so it isn’t really feasible to cover vast areas of the range with it. Unfortunately that means it’s got to be moved and it can be a messy job in the winter,” says Andy.
After moving the plastic netting it is weighted down using concrete blocks which is necessary to prevent it from blowing away.
Rotation of the range area has been aided by the construction of wire walkways that run along the outside of the three buildings housing the birds. This means that the hens can be funnelled to a gateway leading to a fresh paddock. It also makes for cleaner feet when they return to the house.
If the birds need to be guided further away from the house then the ground stabiliser is laid out long ways with electric netting running alongside to form a temporary walkway. It might seem like
an awful lot of work but it’s something that the Oatley’s believe is worth the trouble.
“We like to see the birds spending a lot of time outside but the downside of that is that the range gets a hammering,” says Andy. “Without the ground stabiliser I think we would have had to reseed the area around the houses several times over by now.”
The Oatley’s efforts to reduce wear and tear on the range was singled out for a special mention at last year’s round of the Deans Roadshows. In a presentation by the company’s Darrell Smith, examples were given of farms that had scored high marks in various categories of Deans’ Farm Standards Audit.
“Range management is not just about encouraging birds outside but it also involves maintaining conditions once they are out there,” said Mr Smith. “Covering the ground with netting in this way is a good illustration of what can be done to prevent conditions deteriorating.”
