Need A New Poultry Enclosure - Advice Wanted

 Okay, so the ducks in the polytunnel have had a great winter. Warmer, with a bit of water changed everyday to clean and swim in. The trouble is it prevents me from growing so much winter and early spring produce. One of the main reasons I had a polytunnel in the first place - it helps bridge the hungry gap. 

There has been a warning of avian flu just 3 miles away so I'm worried that the lockdown might last longer than last year and eat into spring, which would affect my summer crops as well. 

So I want them out! 

Poultry Out Of Lockdown!

So this week the poultry could come back out and free range! Woop! 

It hasn't been too bad as I have lots of pens, but I was desperate to get the ducks out of the polytunnel! 

Ducks Got Big!

I can't believe how fast these ducks have grown! They are huge! 

We moved them into a bigger pen the other day and it was far easier than moving chickens! The kids loved herding them as they waddled along (the ducks not the kids waddled).

Ducklings Are Cuter Than Chicks!

It's official - Ducklings are cuter than chicks! 

We've all been super excited for this hatching! I must have been a young child the last time we had ducklings!

Meat Chickens

Last year we had great success growing some meat birds for the freezer, so as everything else winds down I thought it would be a great thing to do again. 

This time I got 26 day old chicks delivered out to me on Wednesday of last week. It was far more cost effective than driving to get them and the company delivers lots of poultry so really knows what it's doing.

Problems With Geese

Sometime last year I got given a book on running a smallholding. That's not an unusual gift for me to be given, but later when I was reading it, I came to the section on geese and someone had taped this little note in the section headed "problems with geese"

I've had this pinned up for months now!

I'm sure not if many others have come across this particular problem with geese before, but I've been told it might make keeping them very difficult if I was to purchase them!

So my question to you all is this - what can I put on my young orchard during the summer that will keep the grass down, not eat my young trees and not cause that particularly difficult problem described above?