Seeing the photo above, some might ask:  what on earth are we doing here?  Making hay.  But why?  In an inner city backyard?  There are no big meadows or cows close by!

Well, we are using it as the chicken coop bedding for our pet chickens!  Instead of buying hay or wood shavings for the bedding, we tried to make some.  It works!

In our bid to live more sustainably in the city, making hay is one little step towards greener living.  It reduces waste and saves money.  It might seem insignificant, but all the little things do add up.

How to Make Hay

Hay is basically cut and dried grass.  It’s usually made on farms to feed stock during the winter or dry season, but also as bedding and/or food for pets.  Straw on the other hand is a byproduct from grain production like wheat.

Although you can’t make haystacks as above form suburban lawn (you’ll need taller grass and lots of it), grass clippings are excellent for making hay in smaller amount. The two most important things to check are:

1. Lawn shouldn’t be chemically treated: no weed killing solution or chemical fertiliser used.
2. The weather: do it on a sunny and wind free day.  As the saying goes: Make hay while the sun shines!

The first point is obvious and if you have kids playing on the grass area you probably don’t use chemicals anyway.  When asking the lawn moving guys to leave some grass clippings, I always remind them not to put any from the nature strip between the pavement and the road as it might contain dog’s poo or cigarette buts.

A perfect day for making hay is when it’s sunny and calm.  Spread the grass clippings in a thin layer on the ground, preferably on the concrete.  Turn it and mix it around a few times during the day.  It shouldn’t take more than half a day or so until it’s completely dry.  Before night time, gather it on a pile and store in a box or another container and leave in the dry place.

On a rainy day I don’t bother making hay, even in the sheltered area as it’s too humid.  I can’t choose the day as the grass is always cut on Tuesday.  Instead, I give a portion of freshly cut grass to our pet chickens to eat (only on the first day!) and the rest goes in the veggie garden as mulch.  The grass breaks down into organic matter enriching soil.   It is also beneficial to leave some clippings on the lawn.   Alternatively, toss it into the compost bin, but no thicker than 5-6 cm.

If you have rabbits or guinea pigs, you might like to try making hay for your pet as food.

Hay as Chicken Coop Bedding

Here you can see our pet chicken Sunflower, the boss, inspecting the fresh hay layer in the coop!

As said, we use hay as bedding for the chicken coop.  We have 3 backyard chickens and they use the coop only for sleeping. At daytime they are in their chicken run.   Fresh hay has a lovely smell, at least until the chickens go to sleep (yes, chickens poo during the sleep, too!) .  The coop is cleaned once or twice a week and the whole hay bedding and the chicken poo goes into the compost bin and makes great fertiliser for the veggie garden. Grass clipping recycling at its best!

Here are some ideas for recycling grass clippings:

• Make hay for pets’ bedding/food
• Feed it to the chickens (freshly cut only)
• Leave them on the lawn as a fertiliser
• Mulch the garden
• Incorporate into the soil in the garden
• Compost the grass clippings
• Put them into the green waste bin, anything but…
• Just don’t throw the grass clippings into the rubbish and add to the already full landfills.  Only…
• In one instance trow the grass clippings in the bin:  If the turf was treated with chemicals!  That grass has been killed long before it was cut!

Let me introduce our gorgeous city chickens: Princess, Singapore and Sunflower.  Singapore is the black one, still occasionally called “he” although reliably proving the opposite every morning.  Sunflower (on the left) has brown feathers, lays biggest eggs and is first in the pecking order – meaning she is the boss!  Princess is our daughter’s darling, brown too, but laced with more white feathers than Singapore.

How it all started?

For quite a while, our kids were asking if they could have a pet, as most kids do.  We’ve tried to settle for a fish, but “we can’t play with a fish!” was the answer.  Fair enough.  For a dog or a cat we neither have time nor space.  Children usually promise to help and take care of pets, but as soon the novelty wears out, they become parents’ full time responsibility.  So we needed an easy care pet that stays outside and can be left on its own for a few days when we are away.

After months of thinking and debating it dawned onto me: pet chickens!  On our last year’s trip to Europe, the kids really enjoyed playing with little chickens at grandparents’. Feeding the big ones and collecting the eggs was fun too. And the eggs were EGGcellent.

Keeping pet chickens has many benefits:

• Fresh and tasty eggs with a deep yellowy –orange coloured yolk
• Cheap to keep
• Simple to care for
• Eat kitchen scraps and leftovers – best composting system
• Produce top manure for the veggie garden (needs to be composted first)
• Chickens are sustainable pets
• Kids love to feed them and to collect the eggs
• Numerous psychological benefits for kids as with any other pet
• If everything properly set up at the beginning, need only 10-15 min of your time daily
• Pet backyard chickens are a lot of fun!

Our chickens came from the kinder our daughter attends.  Just as I started searching for a place to buy them, they had a chicken hatching program:  the eggs that are about to hatch are delivered in the incubator and kids care for the chickens the next ten days.  Afterwards they are either given away for free or taken back to the farm.  Good intentions, but would be even better if the program has the mother hen sitting on the eggs.  It would be a great deal more natural.

Keeping city chickens: some points to consider

If the idea of pet chickens appeals to you, there are few things to think about before getting them into your backyard.  For the start check following:

1. The first thing if living in a city is to confirm your city council allows chickens.  Our council’s rule is six chickens maximum and no rooster.
2. Do you have enough space: allow a minimum of one square meter per chicken and at least two chickens (they are social beings and don’t like to be alone).
3. As with any other pet, there is responsibility of your pet chickens’ wellbeing: protecting them from the elements and predators, feeding them, keeping the area clean etc.  After all, you want happy and healthy chickens.
4. Will the chickens be close to the neighbors, would they object?

Have a tick for all the above?  Great!  The next step is research.  Read a book or two on chicken keeping and search the Internet.  Without going into too many details, you need to decide what breed to buy, where to buy, do you want day old chickens or point of lay (when they are about to begin laying, 5-6 months old) chickens etc.  A book or a comprehensive web site will give you the idea about info you need.

I didn’t have any experience on keeping chickens other that feeding them and collecting the eggs as a little girl while on weekends at my grandparents’.  All that is written here is coming from our experience and let me tell you, having chickens is really fun and rewarding!  I meant to write about them earlier, but was waiting to see if they survive us !  There will be more about our city chickens in the future, meanwhile enjoy our chickens’ pictures: our city girls are mad about sunflower seeds!

Almost a grown chicken: picture taken 20 days before the chickens laid their first eggs:

Still not eating the herbs, but soon it all will disappear…

Any sunflower seeds hidden here?

What a feast!

“Excursion” to the lawn: