Having a Barnyard Full of Poultry Helps to be Eco-Friendly
Are you living an eco-friendly life already? Tune it up with a barnyard full of poultry. Having barnyard birds gives us eggs, and helps to repurpose so many things, you wouldn’t believe it: the circle of life happens right before our eyes. Are you thinking about having poultry, but have concerns? I made a PRO list that may help with the decision.
The perfect circle of life right in our backyards
When we have a barnyard full of poultry, we pretty much stop wasting food, because the little peckers eat almost everything. This helps to reduce waste. From potatoes, fruits, and vegetable skins, to leftover noodles or rice, even crumbs of sliced bread, or rotten fruits, and vegetables. It’s so cute how grateful they can be.
What amazes me, is that they also love eggshells, which are not only tasty for them but healthy as well. Eggshells contain calcium, which they need a lot of since while they lay the eggs for us, it is drained from their bodies. Although, we have to be very careful not to let them eat the original eggs that they lay, because if they experience the taste, they will want to eat more, and we will have to fight for the eggs when we want to collect them from the nests.
How does the circle of life with a barnyard full of poultry help to repurpose things and reduce waste?
It begins with the food, which they eat, and then of course they digest it and poop all over the barnyard. Their manure is a great fertilizer for the garden. Yeah, a bit gross, but it’s worth it, plus, it’s eco-friendly:
- We can put the manure in the compost bin. Find out some more cool tips and tricks about composting.
- Sprinkle and soak it in the garden soil before sowing the plants.
If you don’t want close contact with their manure, there are also two things you can do:
- Let the birds poke around in the compost bin, they do wonders with their tiny legs and beaks
- Let the birds directly to the garden, where you have already dug up the soil, but not started the sowing (otherwise they will eat those). Once they are done, the soil will be breathy, nutritious, and truly eco-friendly, therefore it will be perfect for sowing.
The reward of fertilization is delicious
After all this, the vegetables and fruits that we harvest will end up in our kitchen and eventually our belly. We eat them and produce leftovers, peels, seeds, and there will also be some that have already started to rot. And what do we do with these leftovers? We give them to the lovely birds who helped to have these juicy nourishments.
In the meanwhile, we use their meat and their eggs, which produce leftovers as well. After we are done with the eggs, we can also sprinkle the smashed eggshells on the soil. It’s very nutritious and helps the vegetables and fruits to be healthy and fresh. Eggshells can be repurposed in other ways too, check it out. If we blow out the egg, and the shell stays a whole, we can also have some fun with them, for example baking some egg cakes – find out how.
And so the eco-friendly circle of life begins again.
Check out this infographic image, it shows all the participants of the barnyard full of poultry.
As the infographic image shows, the center of all things in this case is The Food.
Barnyard birds love to eat, so besides their daily forage, we feed them with leftovers to reduce the amount of daily waste.
As a thank you, they lay eggs and poop – great fertilizer in the garden, plus, it’s eco-friendly.
If we let some eggs hatch, we’ll have more barnyard birds, they lay more eggs, and poop more, which we can use in the garden again.
When we eat the vegetables or fruits from the garden, we feed them again, and the new circle of life with the barnyard full of poultry begins again!
If we have more roosters than needed, or the chickens get older and/or stop laying eggs, we can have some bird meat as well.
The moment you have a barnyard full of poultry, the circle of life with the help of the birds begins. All the steps are basically self-generated. But be aware. Having barnyard birds is not only laughter and fun, there are many things to do to make the birds happy every single day – if you truly care about them. And how can you not?
Also, chickens are not the only barnyard birds you can have. There are all kinds of poultry you can keep. They all lay eggs with different benefits, sizes, colors, shapes..
In conclusion, barnyard birds are great to have
Not only big farmers can keep barnyard birds these days. There are all kinds of birds we can keep if we want something else than regular chickens.
Repurpose as many household items and waste as you can, and reduce your ecological footprint (find out how), because these are very important issues in the XXI. century.
The possibility to have a tiny barnyard full of poultry in the back of the garden is more realistic than ever. Just need to create the right space for them. There are the so-called “bantam” chickens, which have smaller bodies, making the perfect tenants in small barnyards.
Being eco-friendly is already awesome, but believe me, walking inside the coops and finding the eggs in the nests are so rewarding, it makes every day a happy day.
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