Soil Shenanigans

[Kajin]

If you've got some chickens, it would be a good idea to take some easily constructed and disassembled style of fencing (like chicken wire) and fence those animals into the area you're wanting to grow crops. Chickens are best for this because they eat bugs and seeds as well as the various grasses and weeds that make up sod, but any style of grazing animal will do.

 

Basically, the idea is for the chickens to eat up all of the grasses seeds and insects while the manure they leave behind fertilizes the soil. After some time has passed, the chickens will have consumed all the edible matter in the relatively small area they've been fenced in, destroying all the grass and leaving behind freshly tilled, grassless soil that doesn't take much effort to plant in. Weeds are less likely to grow because the chickens ate all of the weed seeds before you planted and the soil will be extra fertile as a result of the chickens converting all of the insects, seeds and grasses into manure.

[FawkesGaming]

I think chicken do-do contains amonia; I'm not sure how useful this is when it comes to fertiliser. Also, I can safely say from experience chickens do not make the ground "freshly tilled"- my fathers chickens have done the opposite and just make the ground more compact by the looks of things. Terrible smell too; maybe this'd attract Zeds?

[EnigmaGrey]

Yep, can't say I've ever seen plants thrive under the talons of chickens. That might have to do with the size of their pen, though.

[Kajin]

I think chicken do-do contains amonia; I'm not sure how useful this is when it comes to fertiliser. Also, I can safely say from experience chickens do not make the ground "freshly tilled"- my fathers chickens have done the opposite and just make the ground more compact by the looks of things. Terrible smell too; maybe this'd attract Zeds?

Chicken manure is really powerful stuff and makes for an excellent fertilizer.

 

And yeah, they do make the ground a little bit more compact. But the difficulty in tilling the soil is less in how compact the dirt is and more how difficult it is to dig through the roots and leaves of the existing sod. Unless the chickens each weigh a ton it'll still be easier to dig through the soil than if you had to contend with the plants that would already there if you didn't fence the chickens in the area beforehand.

Yep, can't say I've ever seen plants thrive under the talons of chickens. That might have to do with the size of their pen, though.

They do indeed tear up just about any kind of plant matter.

[FawkesGaming]

Huh. I figured since they can burn their own feet by pooping on them in battery farms, then the amonia would be harmful to plants.

[Kajin]

Only if you apply it directly to the root systems and only if it's fresh. Once the manure has been given a chance to break down a bit and work itself into the soil through rain and daily watering it's pretty well diluted, severely reducing the potential for damaging the plant. It's that way with any fertilizer, really. Too much in too high a concentration and it damages the plant.

[CaptKaspar]

http://www.gardenguides.com/138762-chicken-manure-uses.html

 

for the more technical:

 

http://www.soil.ncsu.edu/publications/Soilfacts/AG-439-05/

[Etsamaru]

I like raising chickens on harvest moon because I just have to pick them up and throw them everyday and feed them don't even have to pet them.

[Phuket]

So after the ground was all ready to go, would you just pick the chickens up and move them to a new pen?

I like the idea. I mean I'm down for anything that adds more realism and emersion into the game. My only question really is:

How would one put together and program the game so this were the case?

Maybe after a certain amount of days say (90) or something. The ground automatically displays some type of color or turns a darker brown representing the ground is ready to plant?

[Kajin]

So after the ground was all ready to go, would you just pick the chickens up and move them to a new pen?

Yeah, that's the general idea I was going for. Keep a number of chickens in a pen assembled from components that are easy to disassemble and reassemble at will. After time has passed and the chickens have eaten everything in the pen, you cage them up and move the pen to the next spot and have them work over a new batch of soil.

How would one put together and program the game so this were the case?

I have no programming skill, so I'm unsure of how exactly the mechanics would work... I'm guessing just a change from a grassy tile to a patchy grass tile to a dirt tile tagged with a fertilization ranking higher than it had before the chickens were placed there... Along with additional tags denoting the reduced chances of weed propagation since the chickens would have eaten all of the seeds previously located on the tiles. I doubt it would be that simple since, like I said, I have no real understanding of programming.

 

Maybe after a certain amount of days say (90) or something. The ground automatically displays some type of color or turns a darker brown representing the ground is ready to plant?

It wouldn't even take half that long. Chickens are voracious eaters and their gizzard lets them digest just about anything with ease. So lock a decent number of them in a moderately sized pen and they'll eat pretty much everything organic within the fencing. The grasses, flowers, roots, seeds, insects... All of it. If the pen was three by five tiles wide (a decently sized plot for growing crops) and you put three or four chickens inside it most of the grass would be gone and the tiles would be converted to dirt inside a week or two. After that, you'd just move them to the next plot you want them to dig through and fertilize.

 

It'd certainly be easier in the short term to do it by hand... But the extra fertilization from the manure (giving your plants better soil to grow in) combined with entirely removing all signs of other plant life on the tile (reducing competition for resources) would make for better cropland than you'd get if you just tilled it yourself.