Chicken Pre-Setup -- Run + "Garden"?

[Ridgerunner]

Yeah @NatJ I'm not aware of any reasons to avoid them eating bean leaves. I have seen recommendations to avoid them eating the dried beans themselves. The dried beans contain a substance that can harm them. One bite won't kill them, it's a matter of dosage. And if the beans are fully cooked they are OK. Kidney beans are supposedly the worst.

I avoid feeding them quantities of dried uncooked beans. If a chicken picks up a stray dried bean when foraging in my garden after gardening season is over I don't worry about it. I should have harvested the vast majority of them anyway.

 

[castillo_de_luz]

I have a berry garden and a tomato garden for the chickens. They LOVE all berries and cherry tomatoes. So I toss berries and cherry tomatoes into their side of my garden fence during grow season and then in fall I let them decimate the garden beds. Just an idea......

Cherry tomatoes yes, for humans and chickies both. Berries... I have never been successful with any type of berry! Either they produce very minimally and with great struggle (strawbs) or they get decimated early by birds and critters. It's so unreliable for me that I hate to spend the money/effort on them anymore, even though berries are my personal favorite snack.

But your point about letting them go for gold once the bed is fallow in the fall... that I just might do!

 

[SandyRiverChick]

Berries..

I have very challenging growing conditions so I'm only talking about blackberries and raspberries, some people consider them invasive but not here with forest canopy and sandy soil. I bet you could grow blackberries. I have failed at blueberries and strawberries.

 

[Etiene]

Last weekend it took 4 adults and 4 hours to clear, level, and lay the base for my new 8x6 chicken run. (A local company will build the actual structure). There's still some leveling to do and of course the hardware cloth will all be covered eventually -- not going to fill the bottom until the run is done.

As you can see in the photo, we left an existing small raised bed that the previous homeowners abandoned.

I don't plan to free-range my birds due to a significant presence of predators, but there's a possibility I'll occasionally allow them to stretch their legs if I'm outside supervising. So anything that goes in there shouldn't be one of the (few) things that could be harmful if ingested.

My REAL garden is located elsewhere on the property, fenced in and absolutely off-limits to the flock. This spot is in almost full sun with short stretches of shade through the growing season here in New England. Ideally this will be a low-maintenance bed.

Creative and/or useful suggestions welcome!

 

[Etiene]

Maybe something like peas or beans? Both of those grow fast, and the greens are safe for chickens to eat if/when they poke into the run, or if the chickens get out. Neither one is likely to be invasive the way mint is. Peas like cooler weather, beans like warmer weather, so you might choose one or the other depending on when you are planting them.

Plant daylilys they like eating the slugs that crawl on the plants but don’t hurt the plants. Daylilys have dozens of colors and grow high enough to hide the chickens.

 

[AinaWGSD]

I love the leafy greens idea. Also radishes are an excellent low maintenance plant that is beautiful when it flowers and reseeds itself readily. I planted radishes in the garden boxes along my patio 3 years ago and they come back every year. You can use the sprouts as a nice spicy addition to sandwiches and salads and if you let it go to seed the young seed pods can also be added to salad or cooked any way you would green beans.