Well, now that I am down to 72 chickens, I have stopped using a couple of my chicken yards. I did this on purpose because I have been wanting to start a vegetable garden for years. I have a yard that is pretty well bare of grass and has been getting chicken fertilizer scratched around in it. Plus, the yard is fenced-in which will keep the rabbits and chickens out of it. I just need to remove the chicken houses that are in the yard and one is so big that I will need to at least partially take it apart.

I think I will even start some seedlings in my house or shed to get a jump start on the growing season. Food is getting so expensive and seeds are pretty cheap.

Also, I am going to plant corn to feed to my chickens. Any decaying food and the plants will end up being extra food for my chickens, too.

Update:  2/11/2012

Well, we ended up moving one smaller chicken house out and dealt with taking down some fence to get it out.  But the second larger chicken house that was super heavy, we cleaned out and are re-roofing it.  It sits on some 4×4 posts. It is only 4ft tall but I am going to use it as storage for my gardening tools.  Just need to change out the entrance so I can actually get to the tools without having to crawl into the shed.

We put down some decayed horse manure on the area we anticipate growing corn.  My husband suggested we plant something in the compost area we took the horse manure from.  So we are going to fence off that area (since it is now in a chicken yard) and plant something there.  I am thinking tomatoes or maybe watermelons.  The soil is so rich looking there.  Yoo hoo