Topic of the Week - Gardening with Chickens

[igorsMistress]

I have used a lot of different things to keep the chickens from completely destroying plants. Some of the most effective were cages made with wire. The plants can grow through the wire but the chickens can’t eat the whole plant. Bricks and rocks at the base of plants prevents dust baths too close to the roots. A tall fence around the garden also works well.

 

[Silexian]

During the growing season. I use a combination of electric poultry netting and chicken wire. To keep our chickens out of the gardens, berry plants and flowerbeds. I take the electric poultry netting down and the weed barrier up. After frost and cold weather shuts the gardens down. Allowing the chickens free run of the gardens. To do all the scratching and digging that they want. Any garden debris that cannot be fed to livestock. Is run through the shredder and added to the compost area. Which the chickens have year round access to. They are great at spreading out and mixing in the newly added material. They also have year round access to our orchard. Where they eat bugs and do an excellent job of cleaning up most fallen fruit. Out in our pasture paddocks they spread out manure piles while searching for undigested grain. Kinda gross, but it breaks the manure down faster and cuts down on the fly population.

 

[MyChickpeas]

We have a completely enclosed chicken compound that is predator proof so the chickens can be outside any time safely. During the day let our chickens out into a larger area that isn't predator proof but keeps the birds contained. We just have way too many flower gardens to protect them from the chickens. Our veggie garden is fenced to protect from the deer and I built a removable tunnel so I can let the chickens into that area this time of year when I'm prepping the soil for planting.
My husband has a 3 stage compost system. Last year he took the tiller into the chicken run, tilled the soil (poop) to loosen it then shoveled all that into his compost pile. We add mulched leaves, kitchen scraps and at the end of summer into the fall we add in the excess water lettuce from our koi pond since it grows so quickly and crowds the pond surface. We do a lot of gardening and have never had to buy compost when using this system.

 

[Bound to Sea]

This year I am planning on making some of these cages. Mine free range everyday they can. I have one Lohman white that is a trouble maker and all I have to do is say Lily, what are you doing! She runs back to the coop! Lol!

 

[Wolfie2]

Not really by design but out of necessity, Our chickens are about 200' from the veggie garden for now. We have an acre fenced with 5' chain link for a few goats we keep and we decided that was the best place to keep them safe from predators. The goats are pretty protective of their area. The chicken free range there during the day and their coop/run is inside and pretty well protected there. The garden has been in its spot far longer than we have had chickens. I have been toying with the idea of incorporating the chickens into the garden safely but in our area we grow pretty much year round so there is never an "off season" for them to do whatever they want in the garden. I think they can be a real help, removing weed seeds and bugs from the garden area but will have to be constantly be rearranging fencing etc. I will let Y'all know if I can figure it out

 

[My Very First 6 Chickens]

My flock varies in size from 40ish (including chicks and cockrels in the summer) to 17 for the winter. I initially got chickens specifically for the benefit they would provide to my gardening. They are kept OUT of the garden during the growing season, and are encouraged to be in the garden after the harvest.

- How do you chicken proof your garden (I.e. minimise damage done to plants etc by free rangers)? The garden is currently surrounded with cattle panel for a permanent fence (to differentiate MY garden from HUBBY'S lawn) During the growing season, I wrap CP with deer netting. Chickens bounce off it a few times, but are not smart enough to realize that they can fly over the netting. When I am able to let them out to free range (all depending on predator activity, hawks which are the primary issue) they have free rein over the entire yard, including the orchard.

- What plants do chickens not eat? I really don't know what they won't eat. If it's something I don't want them eating, and they are eating it or otherwise destroying it, I put a fence around it.

- Composting with chickens? ABSOLUTELY! Primarily accomplished with deep litter in both coop and run. In the coop, I've found that dry leaves are the absolute best bedding for DL. Bee Kissed is the queen of DL in the coop. But, she has the advantage of having a soil floor in her coop, which IMO makes all the difference between a true successful DL compost in the coop, and a "wanna-be" DL (which is what I have). She is able to keep her DL nice and moist, and it has the benefit of all of the beneficial microbes, fungi, and insects to create that nice black humusy compost. I fear letting my DL get damp enough to actually do a good compost in the coop. While I have a solid vinyl over the plywood, and the structural framing is painted, I fear that a moist DL will cause rot to the building. But, I can say that leaves, with the occasional addition of grass clippings, do not have issues with ammonia build up the way shavings have in the past. Several times/year, I open up the clean out door under the perches, and take out all of the old litter in that half of the coop. The litter in the front section then gets moved back under the perches, and I add an other batch of leaves. Goal is to keep enough leaves on hand to not need to buy shavings.

The run is where the compost magic happens. My run is 500 s.f. of compost heaven. It has a gentle slope. My goal is to have a 6" layer of DL on the ground at all times. I dump many cart loads of wood chips, garden debris, grass clippings, leaves, and what ever else I can get my hands on in the door at the highest end of the coop. The birds work it thoroughly and it eventually gets moved down to the back end of the run to mix in with the litter removed from the coop. I have yet to harvest compost from the run, but it is rich, black, and spongy, with small chunks of wood chips mixed in. When I do harvest, I expect to make a sifter so the chunky stuff can be left behind. An other goal is to make a door at this end of the run, so I can put the raw ingredients in the upper side, and take finished compost out the lower side.

As for the rest of my yard: I'm a strong proponent of Back to Eden gardening, and am currently converting my garden to that method. Have been following Ruth Stout gardening methods for many years. IMO, bare soil is neglected soil! Planted a BTE orchard in 2015. Currently working on Hugelkulture mound. Saw an incredible yield from the 12' completed section this season. Any where I want the flock to concentrate their digging efforts, I simply toss a handful of scratch. Their little nuggets provide fantastic amendments to all of these areas.

Future plans: Build some tunnels similar to the ones shown by Trish to allow limited garden access next year. I envision sliding panels at lower level of CP to allow access to a tunnel which can be moved between garden beds within the garden foot print.

You might enjoy this guy. I know every time I watch him, he just makes me smile all the way to my toes:

Great video. Boy does that inspire me!

 

[My Bagurks]

I keep the garden secured with deer fencing or chicken wire fence. I don’t let the chickens on it at all through the growing season. And when I’m done harvesting for the year, I take all the fencing down, pull up the bigger thicker plants and then run the entire thing over with the lawnmower. The chickens go crazy and spend a few months almost exclusively free ranging there. Through the fall, I bag all of the fallen leaves around the yard and add a mulch layer where the garden is. Again the chickens love it. They scratch, peck, turn, and make a wonderful mess of it. When spring comes, I mulch again and put the fences back up and start the cycle over.

 

[Perris]

I let my chickens go where they will. I've found the short answer to the question

- What plants do chickens not eat?

is shrubs and trees, especially evergreens, which is handy, because borders full of such plants can provide year round cover for them, as a sort of temperate version of the jungle in which their ancestors lived.

 

[RaesChicks]

Hi. I have 7 main garden beds in my chook yard. 2 grow cassava which the chickens love the root but it also provides excellent shade and hiding cover from bigger birds.

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?

 

[Sylvester017]

Deer fencing separates our small backyard patio/garden from the chicken side of the yard. The pop-up canopies are setup on the chicken side while the people side has patio roofs.

During young vegetable growing season our chickens (only 6) are kept out of the raised garden beds. We use bird netting to keep out wild birds as well as our hens.

But our deer fence gate was left open and the hens wandered into the garden area. One of the raised beds wasn't secure with the bird netting and the hens had a great time decimating our small cucumber plants! They didn't eat the green weeds but flattened our cucumber plants!

As for composting we don't do deep litter method. As DH cleans out the coop poop he just tosses it directly into the garden beds (we have only 6 hens). After harvesting the garden beds and the exhausted plants die, we turn the hens loose in the beds for most of the winter where they dust bathe and leave their poop for fertilizer and eat spiders and their favorite treat - crickets!

When our cottage and our back & front yards got remodeled we planned to have a few chickens for eggs/pets. So no toxic or poisonous foliage was planted. The vegetables were hot and sweet peppers, various herbs, sweet potato, tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, and one year we tried cantaloupe (took too much growing space!).

P.S. We got a kick out of the Chicken Tunnel man video!