How do you kill the poisonous plant that will be near the chickens, without chemicals?

[Dcps]

I have a huge pokeweed plant growing right next to my coop. None of my free-range chickens have ever been injured by it or any other plant

Thank you!!

 

[LaFleche]

That is good to know! My fear is when my husband mows the ditches, the pieces will fly into the coop area. And they will eat the bits…

Just get a tarp up to prevent the bits from getting within their reach.

 

[Dcps]

Just get a tarp up to prevent the bits from getting within their reach.

Logic….. why do I have none? That makes perfect sense.

 

[saysfaa]

I wouldn't worry much about the chickens eating the curly dock or poke weed but the curly dock is an invasive species around here and I don't want as much poke weed as I have so I take them out.

Not with salt, though. That will make the land permanently infertile.

I cut the seed heads off (most of) the curly dock on about 5 acres four or five years ago, put them in paper lawn debris bags and burned them. It hasn't come back. Not every plant of it is gone but more than 90% is. That is from just one year of doing that - it hasn't made it too the top of the priority list since. It took me about two days with a machete. Maybe less, I was doing the same to the thistle. It was dense in places, sparse in other places of the 5 acres. I don't know why it worked - it is a perennial; so it shouldn't have worked. I thought more the seeds that "last 50 years" would come up in years since and that didn't happen either. Maybe the land or climate has been marginal for it.

Poke might be native here; but I don't want as much as I have. It needs a different method. The poke plants did more putting out of more seed heads when I cut them back so it didn't work as well. I don't have enough of it to bother much with it yet. I plan to either cut it back often for long enough to kill off the root or dig them out. Or both.

 

[Paz]

If it’s a small thing, throw a black plastic sheet on top, if it’s tall, cut it down, then throw a black plastic sheet over it. If it still produces babies, pick them from the root and throw in a bag.