More Raised Beds & Chicken Changes: Part 1

We made the decision to add more raised beds to our garden.  We will be building two more the same size and width near our others that we recently made.  We purchased more tin screws and more metal flashing and that is all we needed.  All is left is to assemble them, fill them with compost, and plant in them.  This is very exciting to me.  This year I will have a full out garden.  I did not get to do that last year with it being our first year here.  My husband is being such a good sport about it.  This is really not his thing but he knows it is a good thing.

We also carried our old recycled wood raised beds out to the chicken coop.  They are each about a foot deep and I plan to plant wheat in one of them and cover the bed with chicken wire.  As the wheat grows up through the chicken wire the chickens can eat the tops off the wheat and supplement them with some extra nutrition.  The other raised bed could be the same way or I might put some sand in it for a dust bath area.  Any thoughts or other ideas on that would be greatly appreciated.  I could always make a different area a dust bath area. 

Other things we will be doing this season will be building a bigger coop.  Our chickens have lots of changes in their little world right now.  A few weeks ago I cut old limbs from a tree and built a long climbing and perching area for them.  I also plan to do something creative with an old basketball hoop in their coop... maybe make it a nest. We have turkeys and added quail to our flock this year.  We have the quail in our old rabbit caging right now inside our chicken run.  We will be assessing whether this setup works for them and changing as needed.  What are you doing new for your chickens and other flock this year?