Topic of the Week - Gardening with Chickens

RaesChicks said:

Hi, I too am an avid gardener that grows cassava and beans such as pigeon peas but have always been very concerned about the chickens picking at them due to the cyanide content in the cassava. Are birds immune to it? Have you ever noticed any negative effects?

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We never planted cassava but we do plant tomatoes every year -- which our research showed that tomato leaves, vines, tomato skins and seeds are toxic (not poisonous) for human, animal, bird, or insect consumption -- only pests like aphids or tomato worms love tomatoes -- but all other life seems to avoid our tomato plants. The hummingbirds, butterflies, and bees won't go near the flowering blooms.

However, our hens never got the memo to avoid tomatoes and they will devour both leaves and tomatoes if they can reach them (they seem to prefer our Sun Gold Cherry tomatoes and leaves so we plant that variety just for the hens). Our oldest hen lived over 11 years eating tomatoes and leaves from the garden beds so I guess hens have the good sense to know when to stop eating?! Our hens get plenty of greens every day but they just can't pass up those tasty cherry tomatoes on the vine!

These Sikies are picking at the leaves of this Roma tomato plant but avoid the unripened fruit.


Now, when it comes to POISONOUS plants (i.e., oleander, etc) we absolutely avoid them!

The following links seem to list a very thorough variety of toxic plants for poultry and the plants' effects (probably not every poultry owner will agree with these lists but I found them helpful):
https://www.poultryhelp.com/toxicplants.html
https://www.grit.com/uncategorized/...oxic-to-dogs-cats-and-chickens/#axzz3KpE7wOXl

Since I am extremely poor and grow food because I cannot afford food I let the jungle surround the garden. I wish I could afford a fence. I'm very unsuccessful as rats are all the corn starts this year. I throw door screens over seedlings or pot seeds and keep them on top of junk cars.
This spring in Hilo has been zero sun so everything is like waiting for it. Our days are short and some things just don't grow.
Any place I want a garden bed is massive work and mostly rocks. Root vegetables are a definite no go. It takes days to make a very small space for sweet potatoes. Squash gets lost in the jungle and disappears forever. I had fruit trees but the cows got in and destroyed them. I started papaya trees but the chickens go to them in pots and ate all the tops.
The food bank here hates white people so I avoid it. I'm basically starving and getting skinny fast.
I thank God for my chickens. Their eggs have been my.protien and vitamins.
I buy organic feed for them and let the free range around. Without the bird, I'd starve for sure.
Jesus never promised us a good life for following him so I'm keeping up for that good eternity. This is not a call for help. I fine , God always provides when I'm at an end. Something or someone always comes for my needs. God bless.us. Aloha

@AngelAnela -- Yes, Angel, God is so good! I grew up on a farm and my folks were poor too -- yet the animals were always life-savers. Folks tried raising the larger animals like sheep, goats, cows, even a horse for pulling the plow -- but they didn't keep them long -- fences have always been an expensive farm item. But in the end it was the poultry -- chickens, ducks, and geese that provided us constant eggs and meat.

Great that you manage to feed your poultry organic feed. Whatever goes into a chicken is what comes out in their eggs so you get maximum nutrition.

And yes, bird netting to cover growing vegetables can be expensive so our first year we bought yards of much cheaper bridal veil fabric to fit over our garden beds -- it comes in very wide width (about 72 inches) so it covered our beds nicely. And we rolled it up and used it again for a few more years. When the tulle started to wear out we cut them down smaller to cover over smaller potted vegetables.

Bridal tulle gets a bit dirty for use in subsequent years but who cares as long as it works.

We kept this tulle on the tomato plants longer than we needed to -- it was our first year experimenting with the tulle and we weren't sure about when to finally remove it!


Tomatoes are self-pollinating and don't need cross-pollination on the blooms so the tulle can stay on the plants a long time. However, on squash, cucumber, or other veggies they need butterflies and bees to cross-pollinate the budding flowers so then we switched to open bird netting to allow the bees to fly freely into the garden beds to pollinate the blooms yet the strong bird netting kept out cats, wild birds, and our chickens.

Please tell us more about what you do with your gardens and chickens as your methods can greatly educate us too.

I have a big dog kennel about 11 feet by 5 feet and 7 feet tall with chicken wire on the top with a door I can lock. I mix the chicken poop in with the dirt for my zinnias and they grow giant way bigger than without it

junipercloud113420 said:

I have a big dog kennel about 11 feet by 5 feet and 7 feet tall with chicken wire on the top with a door I can lock. I mix the chicken poop in with the dirt for my zinnias and they grow giant way bigger than without it

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That works, good idea. I used a mosquito net over my greens planter to keep the green worm out. We also have ratlung disease from slugs and it keeps those out as well and the chickens don't bother jumping up with the net over it.
I'm buying a huge roll of bridal tulle someone told me about for the same thing. I'll cover squash and pigeon pea trees with it. Those green wo ma eat everything. ( Moth larva).

AngelAnela said:

That works, good idea. I used a mosquito net over my greens planter to keep the green worm out. We also have ratlung disease from slugs and it keeps those out as well and the chickens don't bother jumping up with the net over it.
I'm buying a huge roll of bridal tulle someone told me about for the same thing. I'll cover squash and pigeon pea trees with it. Those green wo ma eat everything. ( Moth larva).

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Mosquito netting -- what a great idea! It looks a lot like bridal tulle net. I wonder if they are the same material? For me I would go with whatever is cheaper yet covers my plants.

So sad that we have to battle with insects and garden pests. We get snails/slugs during our wet weather but our chickens won't eat the slime slugs. Ducks love snails/slugs but I don't have enough room in our tiny backyard to have both chickens and ducks.

Also, ducks are pretty noisy. My folks had ducks, chickens, and geese -- and ducks were the noisiest of all. My neighbors don't mind our hens since they don't make noise all day long. I don't think ducks ever stop talking -- even sleeping they're still quacking