Digging With Chickens

This is how to dig with chickens. First choose your digging implement - no, not a chicken. You didn't think I meant using a chicken to dig with, did you? Shame on you, if you did. We love chickens at Ginnungagaps. So, choose implement i.e a spade or a fork. I prefer a fork myself as they allow you to do a little twiddley motion that loosens determined roots efficiently. Next, pick your spot....oh dear, are you going to be difficult? Not that spot. Pick that one and you'll be scarred for life. (Also, some things are better done in private and that is one of them.) I mean, pick an area in the garden that requires digging. Got it? Good. Now, release your chickens. If you haven't got chickens then you are scuppered and may as well stop reading this now and go back to whatever it was you were doing before.

For those still with me, begin digging. Make the most of this initial few first minutes as once chickens realise what you are doing your starting speed will be cut by at least 300% as they begin 'helping'. Chickens will see that what you are doing is not turning over the ground in order to plant lovely seeds and young plants (they'll get those later, anyway) but digging up worms, earwigs and other luscious bugs for them to eat. Chickens will stand with their heads approximately 2 inches from the sharpest edge of your digging implement. The anticipation will be palpable. An air of tense excitement will build in the air. You lift a forkful of earth and....IN THEY GO!!! PECK, PECK, PECK, BOK,BOK,BOKKITY,BOK,BOK,BOK!!

Have you ever seen a chicken eat a worm four times the length of its head? Just don't get too close, that's all I can say. I could swear I heard distant screaming.

Chickens will look at you. 'Come on, then. Dig, dig, you tardy human.' After a few more turns of the ground, chickens will now sit on fork for best vantage point. At this point, digging with chickens becomes extreme digging with chickens i.e a bit dodgy. So, choose a second spot in the garden. Distract chickens with newly turned earth at spot one (or point in the air and shout 'Look at that!' This sometimes work.) Then run to second spot and dig like crazy until chickens finish with spot 1, race like velociraptors to spot 2, which you vacate and race back to spot 1 etc etc, do you get the idea? It's a bit like relay only without the baton.

You get a fab work out - actually, this could be a good sport to put forward for 'Limpics 2012. That's 3 I've thought of now. I'd apply for a job on the International Olympic Committee only I don't want people to get the idea that I actually like sport. Heaven forbid.

As you dig with chickens you will accumulate some gardening debris. If you pile it up, chickens will climb on pile and tribal dance until it is scattered across the garden again. This will take 2 chicken approximately 30 seconds to achieve. I prefer to bin bag debris immmediately. Hang bin bag on washing line or chickens will get inside and think you've thoughtfully provided them with a chicken tent.

Digging with chickens is a joy for the heart. Just don't expect to make much progress.