Fodder trees on dairy farms - Extend the grazing season with trees and shrubs

Policy Briefings

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Commercial apple orchards in poultry freerange areas - Increase revenues from your investment in animal welfare

Why plant trees?

A free range area contributes to chicken welfare. However, chickens prefer range areas with shelter provided by trees, bushes or artificial structures. A farm with 10,000 chickens needs a range area of 4 hectares. Planting such a large area with trees is a big investment. Introducing commercial fruit trees is one way to add a valuable revenue stream. Every fruit species has particular needs and some will require additional investment. For example, cherry trees require netting for protection against birds. This leaflet explains the requirements of incorporating apple trees into a free range poultry system.

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Featured Farm of the day

Mixed Crop-Dairy Cattle Farm in South-Western France

In 2000, they decided that ploughing had to stop and that their agricultural system could be modelled as closely as possible to the forest, with constant inputs of organic matter to enhance bacterial life in the soil.

Why browse woody plants?

To face the challenges arising from decreasing water and fossil fuel resources, dairy systems will have to limit their use of irrigation, mineral nitrogen fertilisers and exogenous concentrates.

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Factsheet

Wakelyns Agroforestry, Suffolk, UK

Grape harvesting in between Sorbus domestica

Iberian pig feeding on holm oak acorns

Walnut and Maize

Trees planted on grasslands and between fields in the “Juchowo Farm”

Alley-cropping at Vattholma, Sweden

Xeromero valonia oak forest/silvopastoral system (West Greece)

Willow silvopasture

Willow coppice, Netherlands

Goats and Fraxinus, Portugal

Fodder trees on dairy farms - Extend the grazing season with trees and shrubs