Forest pasture becomes bare in November

Around the beginning of November, I had to increase the forest pasture flock's daily ration of storebought feed back to the normal levels.  Kitchen scraps have mostly petered out since we're now just eating out of the garden rather than freezing masses of produce every day, and the last of the garden is now weeded and put to bed for the winter.  With less coming in from outside the pasture, the current paddock is looking quite bare and the chickens are depending mostly on storebought feed for their energy.

In a perfect world, we would have a third paddock fenced in and ready for the flock, but fall is a busy time and I suspect that paddock won't make it onto the list of chores for a few more weeks.  Instead, I plan to start layering fresh wood chips and other sources of biomass in the paddock for the chickens to work through, creating mulch and keeping them off the bare soil in a deep-bedding type system.

Meanwhile, I'm eying the winter wheat in the first paddock, which popped up in a lush layer of green during a late October rain.  Around the end of November, I think the seedlings will be well enough rooted that I'll be able to turn the chickens into this paddock for a day or so to give them a dose of fresh green vegetables.