Chickens get into the garden! -- oh no or ah yes!

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amiachicknorwat

amiachicknorwat

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7 Years
Aug 3, 2015
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Finally I let the chickens into the garden yesterday. Prior I'd only let them into the yard around the house out of fear they'd devour all my planted veges. I figured while I'm working in the garden anyway, I could watch over peripherally and put a stop to any out of order pecking. This is our first year in this garden and at our new home. We're not used to planting so large a space. At first they just stayed at the margins, around the outside. Then they finally broke thru the unmowed wall of weeds. I was delighted with their delight, then even more so at they didn't go for my tomatoes. Didn't so much as peck at any kale. Mostly they went in between the plants and had a great time chasing down grasshoppers. That was my prime motivation, so we're gonna try to let them out there as often as possible in hopes of keeping grasshopper population in check.

 
My garden was my main motivation for having chickens. Every year the grasshoppers would decimate my crop after months of hard work on my part. My dog is harder on the garden then the chickens. He loves the cool ground of the waffle beds and smashes down the plants. My chickens love the compost pile and can reduce it to nothing in a matter of weeks. You will reap the benefits of your chickens helping in the garden next year.
 
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Mine too. Mainly cuz their doo-doo is a compost accelerator, but also for the surface tilling they do. Yeah, after turning my biggest compost pile, by itself it took days for it to settle barely noticeably. Then I opened up the chicken run to include the pile within, and within 2 days it was almost half its size. I'm still new to chickenry, so wasn't sure whether letting them into the garden was a good safe idea. Glad to see your positive response, cuz they obvious love being in the garden and their delight delights me.
 
Glad I found this thread, I am new to gardening and chickens this year, winter will be here before I know it, so I was just wondering if it would be ok to let my chickens roam the garden b4 the frost comes,,, I still have tomatoes, corn and potatoes, but I can section it off b4 letting the chickens in the garden,,,the entire garden is fenced in?
 
Percheron chick said:
My garden was my main motivation for having chickens. Every year the grasshoppers would decimate my crop after months of hard work on my part. My dog is harder on the garden then the chickens. He loves the cool ground of the waffle beds and smashes down the plants. My chickens love the compost pile and can reduce it to nothing in a matter of weeks. You will reap the benefits of your chickens helping in the garden next year.
Click to expand...


Ditto :)

Aside from pecking red tomatoes before I can get to them, and irritatingly scratching up theulch, they benefit the garden more than they actually damage it ;)

Keep potatoes, tomatoes, beans, and curcubits out of reach until you're done with them though lol... Holes pecked in watermelons and claw marks in the squash... Just visual damage, but I have 28 chickens lol, they can do some serious damage when they find a goodie ;)


But i don't have a bug problem, that's for sure :D
 
My garden is entirely fenced in, mainly to fence it off from deer. I have tomatoes and potatoes too and my birds seemed to leave them alone. "Seemed", or so far. It just seems by what others have said here I should watch closer. I'm up in Canada and only had two small, tho nice watermelons come up. We got lots of grasshoppers and I'm banking on their preference for those and other bugs we got aplenty. The difference between the fencing in our and our garden space is our run has overhead protection vs. raptors with filament criss-crossed from the fence post tops. Our garden is wide open overhead. This is why I only let them in the garden when I'm in there gardening or working around it.
 
Hey y'all, I've got a question. I let my chickens go in the garden too and so of course they poop all over. Chicken poop is great manure I've heard, but I can't find a definitive answer... Is the 'raw' poop ok in the garden? Or is it best if it 'cooks' in the compost? Should I be picking up after them and tossing it in the compost or just leave the poop be? I'm more of a lazy gardener, I know what I would rather do.....
 
Geez, great question. I'm only answering cuz your post landed in my mailbox, leaving me think you were addressing me, the "thread starter". I feel it's OK, unless of course you got many chickens and a small garden, then you'd have an unnatural concentration not found in nature where the odd animal passes by then the odd one drops some doo-doo. I think the high nitrogen in chicken $#!* will be good for tomatoes and other nightshade varieties. Basil might find it too hot. But if your garden is of size in proportion to your headcount of chickens I'd just carry on. My chickens are very well behaved in the garden eating around my planted food. They haven't even pecked at my tomatoes and I feed them tomato scraps from my compost, so I give them free reign while watching over to make sure until i'm satisfied either they're not gonna eat or that i've eaten enough. Hasn't happened tho. Clear sailing...
 
My theory goes that if it's a veggie that will be eaten raw, I would not want any chicken poo on it. So, I'd be fine letting them run through my pole beans, corn, squash, and the like. I'd not want them scratching through my lettuce/spinnach or other greens.
 
Yeah, I hear ya, man. I caught them red-handed today. Well, not quite. Trailing a bit far behind them I found a decimated tomato. Then later, if that wasn't enough, under the peach tree lay 3 mostly eaten and otherwise destroyed fruit. Low lying fruit, the best in peaches, ugh. But still, I find they benefit the garden much more than detract. I'd like to think we can all afford ton share a little.

I just got my chickens after I planted my garden, so none of this was I imagining in forethought
 

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