In the Freebirds project, two agroforestry systems with chickens and different type of vegetation have been tested.

Chickens that are housed in an organic system have ample opportunity to roam around in the free range. Unfortunately, the majority of chickens in a flock stays close to the chicken house and do not use the full range. Staying close to the house in dense populations causes depletion of the soil and its biodiversity and can result in easier transfer of (pathogenic) diseases among chickens in a flock. Enhancing overall range use in a flock by keeping chickens in an agroforestry system may benefit their welfare. In an agroforestry system, plant production and chicken production occur on the same site. It is likely that these two agricultural systems have positive symbiotic effects on each other i.e. fertilization of the soil by the chicken and protection from weather and aerial predators by the trees. Funded by the CORE Organic Freebirds project and the LegComBio project from the Flemish government, we studied these symbiotic effects. We looked at range use of individual chickens in a free range with different plant production types. Biomass, vegetation cover and soil content were investigated in two different plant production types (willow short rotation coppice and small hazel trees). The research took place at the unique experimental site of the Flanders Research Institute for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (ILVO) in Belgium, where individual chicken could be tracked simultaneously.

More details at this LINK

Source: Core Organic Cofund