A friend texted me this evening to alert me to Costa's Garden Odyssey, which had a segment on chook domes in a mandala garden at Purple Pear Organics in the Hunter Valley. The garden looked fabulous; it followed the Linda Woodrow design, but didn't seem to have the 1-m strips round the edge of each circle. Also, their gardens were much neater and tidier than mine!
Our mandalas have gone wild in the recent rain, and last weekend we moved one of the domes onto an extremely verdant circle. Bruce wasn't sure that the chooks would cope, he also thought they'd escape as we lifted the dome up to get it over all the plants. Happily, his fears were groundless. The chooks were so excited by all the greenery that they plunged straight into it, apparently with no thought of escaping, although one did get stuck between the wire of the dome and the plants pressing against it, so I had to go in and knock over a few plants to free it. Within days, the chooks had stripped all the leaves and the cirle is now looking quite bare. Here are some photos of the chooks when we first moved the dome, plus me trying to get back out of the dome (the door is just a bit too high for me).
Click on photo to enlarge image
Hi I love your blog! I too am attempting Linda's backyard chook dome (trying to follow the instructions in the book) and am having lots of trouble with the pvc pipes either kinking or busting at the join. Can you give me some advice since i see yours looks as though it's happy to stay in a circle. Cheers :)
Posted by: Bec | October 14, 2011 at 03:48 PM
Hi could I get an idea of what to plant in the edge guild of a mandala?
Posted by: Simone McSweeney | April 14, 2010 at 02:39 PM
Hi there
I was wondering what breeds of chickens you have?
Thanks
Posted by: jason | January 10, 2010 at 06:55 PM