Best breed for gardening. .

[Fowl Explorer]

I'd try non-chicken types like ducks and guineas and turkeys. But they all like tomatoes and all berries!

 

[corriemartin]

Carol Deppe in her book The Resilient Gardener has a chapter on ducks and gardening. What she does is herd them into the garden, and let them at it for a period of time. She says that the ducks prefer their meat course first (the bugs), and she herds them out again before they're ready for their salad course. But only with an established garden--not seedlings, which they will trample. I'm looking forward to having my ducks clean up my orchard, once it's an orchard and not just tiny sticks. They are very herd-able, and do go nuts about bugs. But I think you have to watch them to make sure that's all they're eating.

I'm planning on having my chickens clean up my garden at the end of the season, with an electro-net fence.

 

[kimberly r]

The Australian spotted bantam duck is surprisingly small and since it is a duck will not scratch and so far it seems like they do not eat brassicas like bigger ducks have in my garden. Very interested in trying the fowl after reading this post, they seem like such an amazing overall protector for the rest of the flock also.

 

[Wormhunter]

Wasnt sure where to put this. But it does involve flock management.

So i tried having my laying hens free range a couple years ago. They tore upneverything.flower Bushes, tomato plants zuchinni. Nothing was safe from them and i only had 5 at the time.

Now i have 13. 5 rir 2 1/2 years old And 8 EE 18 months.

Id like to get some smaller birds to roam my garden. The layers are fenced into a 1/3 of an acre of their own.

Is there a type of poultry that woildnt be so destructive, can roam the rest of the property. Not fly over 6 ft fencing to get in with the bigger birds. And could i have a rooster without him getting to the bigger girls.

If i cant free eange id consider enclosing rhe garden and having it as part of a run.


What would i do with small eggs? Is there any business in selling fertilized eggs of smaller birds?

Kind of stream of thought questioning here. Sorry if it makes no sense.

Hi, I’m in the uk and we had begun to landscape our garden when a phone call alerted us our 7 chicks were ready for us !!!
They are quite large chickens now (9months old) and we have trialled a range of gardening approaches, currently this is what wirks
All shrubs flowers etc are in large tubs, they have rocks ( shingle or bark does not work) placed in the pot heavy enough not to be dug away, the pots are then placed on bricks or blocks and put in situ
The lawn has many holes and we continue to stamp down damage
An area of the lawn is sloped, has grass and soil and we throw compost, grass clippings veg roots, leaves etc for the girls to scratch and dig in, they like to create dust baths and dig holes in this area, it’s been 5 months and currently things are going well
Let me know if info helps you

 

[Kat MacK]

We stopped allowing our big girls into the garden/orchard when they started scratching up tree roots from the fruit trees several years ago. Now we raise mostly bantams, most of those serama, although we have an OEGB that is the top hen. We fence our lower raised beds to keep the girls out and grow our veggies mainly in these, plus one other bed that's about 30 inches high. If they start to dig down too deep somewhere or start digging in the large pots, we put bricks or pavers down to protect that area. None of ours have tried to fly over our six foot solid fence.

If you're still having trouble getting rid of all those eggs, you might look into donating them to a local food bank or homeless shelter. Food banks in our area are desperate for donations due to the number of people unemployed from COVID.

 

[ShannonR]

I had good luck this year with raising commercial meat birds in the garden. They ate some watermelon leaves, that was about it. They are too heavy to fly, too lazy to to a large amount of foraging, and would rather stand around by the feeders than do much of anything else.

 

[TheRusticRebel]

Great ideas everyone. Thanks for the responses. We are still deciding on breed but we have settled on where their coop and run will be.