My chickens are destroying my garden!!!

[Titania]

well, I don't know if the chickens will eat hostas, daylillies, tulips & the like, but I can tell you that they sure do their best to keep them from coming up! My experience this past late winter/early spring (and this is my first year with chickens) is that they dug up all my daylilly tubers while scratching, pecked the tar out of my irises, leveled the daylilly shoots, picked huge holes in the tulip shoots, etc. I've stopped letting them free-range for the moment. In the summer they weren't as bad. I think there was enough green grass to keep them occupied, but while it's winter and all there is is a few tender shoots in flower beds, ripe for digging for bugs, they were too destructive for my plans.
It's too early for hostas to come up so they haven't messed with those, except for the hosta bulbs (tubers?) I find dug up all over the place.

Good thing I adore my chickens!! I'm thinking of putting low garden decorative fencing around my flower beds, putting posts with chicken wire around the vegetable garden, and planting a special garden just for the chickens all around their coop! I'm thinking kale, wheat, buckwheat, alfalfa, etc. (There is a great thread on special plants for chicken gardens.) Hopefully they'll be happy with their own area of garden, a green lawn & the occasional permitted forage through designated flower bed & vegetable garden areas.

 

[CathyM]

They'll go for anything - they scratch in any dirt they see... and when they're not tearing up, they can and will plunge through and topple plants!

I have had most of my iris snapped off, my poppies trampled, my sapling berries uprooted... the list goes on. I love my chooks, so my only solution is to fence off any area I don't want them in... I haven't figured out how to do it on all of areas, but just recently I figured out I can use the tomato cages (below) temporarily to let some berry saplings get big enough to resist (I hope) the scratching and trampling. (The black cloths were the first try - they tore them off easily). My established raspberries and boysenberries don't seem to be harmed at all, so there's hope that some perennials won't need fences.

 

[NonnasBabies]

Our fence is 4 ft and they rarely get in there!! I think in the almost year I've had 2 get in it!!

 

[WhiteMountainsRanch]

Quote:
That's why they make chicken wire!

It will need to be 4 or 5 feet tall and you will probably have to clip one wings feathers on each bird.

 

[firsthouse_mp]

I have some of the most unattractive wire cages protecting my veggies. I tried a lot of different things but so far this is the only thing that has worked. It completely limits my ability to plant certain larger plants/veggies, but I do love my chickens so I guess I will just have to be creative and deal with it.

I still wonder what will happen when the plants grow bigger--will I need to make bigger cages or will they leave the plants alone? I have quite a few bushes and other plants that they ignore so I am hoping it's just a matter of critical size.

After I designed the backyard, I saw a picture of a coop/garden where the coop was in the middle and there were two runs--one on each side of the coop. One run was used for the chickens, the other run was used for the veggies--the coop had doors to each run. They swapped the usage of the runs every other year--the chickens were on one side one year and then the next year they were on the other side. So basically, the chicken poop from the previous run helped the veggies, then the following year, the chickens were moved back to other side to fertilize the other side. Seemed like a great system for a Backyarder like me. I might still end up doing this eventually one year. Both runs had 6' fences.

My ugly cages:

My alliums under cover and my pea teepee with chicken wire at the bottom:

 

[CoyoteMagic]

Quote:
I know exactly the picture you are talking about. I would love to have a set up like that too.

I'm wondering if those cages you have there in the center of that photo were maybe, say 4ft wide, that would stop the chickens from jumping over them and eating the rest of the garden.

I lost 2 gardens to the chickens last year!!!! I got 3 tomatoes all summer!!

 

[GarlicEater]

They'll tear up everything, They will eat up snails, slugs, etc but don't let 'em in there unless you want everything plowed up (which has its place).

Fence and clip wings or fence and chase roosters I say. You know how chickens work, the hens follow their rooster. So, if they're in the garden, just chase and throw stuff at the rooster. It's kinda fun, actually! But if your place is pretty bare and your garden is lush, it's going to be hard to keep them out, you may want to plant and irrigate some stuff they like that's outside the garden.

 

[drdoolittle]

A friend of mine raises several diferent breeds of chickens and also has goats, horses, guineas, and peacocks. She lets the birds free-range every day, all day. The area surrounding the house is off-limits, as this is where she gardens (both vegetable, and flower). To keep her birds/beasts out, she has a 3-foot fence with gate around that part of her yard. However, the occasional straying chicken wil jump the fence and start scratching everything up. Her solution? She and her hubby have a beautiful border collie named Rex. They simply say, "Rex, chicken in the garden!", and he goes straight in and herds the wayward chicken back over the fence----even if they are out in the field! This is one amazing dog, as they got him as an adult from a breeder who kept him tied much of the time------he had no training for any kind of herding whatsoever, just learned from my friend and her hubby. They also have a female BC, and one of the pups from her and Rex, and another that they got from a young family that didn't know what to do with her. They areall great with the chickens and other livestock. I know what kind of dog I'm getting the next time I need one!

 

[Bronnie of the Brahmas]

Wow, that dog sounds sooo clever! I've just resigned myself to the fact that, if I want a beautiful garden, I can't let my monstrous yet beloved brahmas in it. Believe me, I've tried it, and I tried putting in stakes and wire etc but they're ugly, and compromise the beauty of the garden. In my experience I just haven't been able to make it work. So I guess, if you have room for it, it's a case of how much you love your garden versus how much you love your chickens. I chose the best happy medium I could, and have given them their own 10 x 5 metre free ranging yard. I realise this isn't easy if you don't have much space. Their yard has a 4 ft fence with a foot of wire stretched along the top. This discourages them from jumping up too, because they can't see a firm foothold. Not that that matters much now they have got so big, you're lucky if you get their fat fluffy butts up 2 ft, let alone 5. they've decimated everything in their yard, which is a shame, but that is the way chickens are, I guess. My chicken encyclopaedia suggests putting cherry laurels in their yard as it is a good way to let them get a bit of distraction, as the shrubs will last a while, but unfortunately they too will eventually succumb to the terrible ravage of beaks and toenails and will need replacing. At least I can now confidently plant out seedlings and bulbs in my garden safe in the knowledge that they will not be assaulted or dug up.
This is just my opinion. I realise there are many others with better ideas!
All the best with your fight against the ravaging!

 

[Zonoma]

My older schnauzer chases the rabbits out of the veggie garden. I'm hoping she will catch on and do the same with the chickens if they get into it. Of course, I'm also hoping she'll catch on that the chickens are to be protected instead of eaten but only time will tell.