Humans, in their infinite wisdom, have been taking advantage of animals for centuries. Early farmers fenced animals, trapping them, fattening them up, milking them, collecting their eggs and and even using their droppings to the farm's advantage. Pooh is just another usable by-product.
People don't think of chickens as grazers, but like their local relatives, the grouse (AKA Forest Chicken) they definitely graze. Or perhaps a better term would be scrounge.
In the spring my chickens eat lots of fresh new grass shoots. They help keep lush lawn areas down. I encourage them to visit an area they are ignoring by sprinkling some hen scratch among the longer grasses. In fall and winter they don't get enough fresh stuff and that's when I give them laying pellets. That is also the time of year when they can be used as tiny rototillers, helping me dig over beds old and new. We have many worms in our garden in the fall and winter. I think the chicken pooh attracts them. All I have to do is bring out the shovel and the chickens are there waiting for soil to be turned.
All year they get kitchen scraps. They are also composters, turning vegetable scraps into soil within a week if you plan things right with straw, newspaper and lime. There are a few things they won't eat, like orange peels, so I burn them. When dried, citrus peels make excellent firestarter.
As long as I run my garden this way it will always be a rubber boot area, but I can attest to the fact, that because there is little pooh per square foot, that it also doesn't reek. Either that or my rose coloured glasses have slipped down and are now also covering my nose.
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