Any of these garden items bad?

[lurae]

my 12 week old flock of 10 are still too small/young to move to the big house with the adults (100% free range). I am considering opening up their current coop to my garden but am a little unsure of some of the plants. It's Fall and phasing out most of it but some things are perennials and will stay. All raised beds: asparagus, herbs (thyme, basil, oregano, chives, sage), comfrey, artichoke, strawberries, marigolds, and squash. Is there anything that would be harmful to them? Most of the area is tall grass and weeds outside of the beds so lots of bugs and scratching...

 

[nuthatched]

Nothing harmful but they willl decimate your garden.

 

[lurae]

Nothing harmful but they willl decimate your garden.

Yes, I do realize that but this is a year for moving the beds and will have to re-plant so in some ways they will be doing me a service. The comfrey, artichokes and asparagus will have to stay so will probably have to figure out a temporary fence for those. Thanks for the reply.

 

[Perris]

My flock don't touch the comfrey here; don't know on artichokes or asparagus.

And if you already have a flock of adults free-ranging, you already know how to keep them out of no-go areas, and that they'll be doing you a service cleaning up the old beds. You might find a book by Harvey Ussery useful for this purpose; he uses chicken tractors to deploy his chickens productively on beds round his garden, https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/the-small-scale-poultry-flock-revised-edition/

 

[lurae]

Good to know on the comfrey, thank you. My older girls just leave the beds alone but with the newbies I know they will be trying everything at least once.

 

[gimmie birdies]

Big black buckets like empty tree pots are bad because chickens can flip them over on themselves.

 

[lurae]

my 12 week old flock of 10 are still too small/young to move to the big house with the adults (100% free range). I am considering opening up their current coop to my garden but am a little unsure of some of the plants. It's Fall and phasing out most of it but some things are perennials and will stay. All raised beds: asparagus, herbs (thyme, basil, oregano, chives, sage), comfrey, artichoke, strawberries, marigolds, and squash. Is there anything that would be harmful to them? Most of the area is tall grass and weeds outside of the beds so lots of bugs and scratching...

Just found this, so many things! My downfall is an oak tree shades the coop... https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/comprehensive-list-of-poisonous-plants-and-trees.627282/

 

[Perris]

Just found this, so many things! My downfall is an oak tree shades the coop... https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/comprehensive-list-of-poisonous-plants-and-trees.627282/

There are multiple types and ages of oak here, and they're fine. The chickens are turning over oak leaves all the time without issue. They don't eat them or the acorns.

And I think you can trust chickens, like all other birds, to know what's edible and what's not for them amongst natural products. Aromatic plastics are an exception, and our pollution, which you should remove from their environment.