Ideas needed for plants chickens DON'T like-garden help!

Our girls eat anything in our backyard except bulbed plants, bushes, rhodies, ferns, herbed plants, and Ivy. They especially LOVE to devour our rubarb and hostas. Before we let the 3 hens we got free range, my wifes rubarb plant was 4' wide, and 3' tall. It was gone in less than 24 hours. We had to laugh.

I've found that they don't like my cucumbers or heirloom spinache. They devour everything else, including banana tree stocks. They're riduculous.

Mine ate every living plant including hosta, ground cover, lily of the valley in all my garden beds. There are alot of goid suggestions...so i will write them down and try again!

It's certainly helpful to choose plants they won't eat (the list may be short though) but don't disregard that there may be other reasons they are drawn to the area.

I have found that my girls like to forage most in areas that offer some sense of protection from predators or the elements. Windy days find them using structures like the house as a wind break which naturally puts them in my flower bed. The shrubs and larger plants in the side yard offer protection from aerial predators so they are more apt to forage under them on cloudy days when the hawks might be able to sneak up on them. They'll also stick to the shade when it's super hot so I'm pretty much guaranteed to find them hanging out under stuff like the picnic table or around the shady patio.

If you don't want them to forage in a particular place you need to do things to discourage them. Post #3 by SandraChick has some excellent suggestions.

The other half of it is that you have to encourage them to forage elsewhere. Provide an area of "sacrificial" plants in an area that also provides good protection. Let the grass in one spot grow a little longer. Create structures or plantings that offer shade at different times of day. Simply wetting down the ground or turning over a few shovelfuls of earth can attract them to a certain area. Decorative fencing strategically placed can encourage (or discourage) them from certain areas. Offering a secondary water source or regularly scattering scratch grains once or twice a day in the same area can build a habit of staying around an area.

So yes, planting less appetizing plants will help, but I think they will still eat and/or destroy just about any plant (appetizing or not) if that is all their environment has to offer and if the area it is in provides them with easy access to forage and a sense of protection from predators and the elements.