Best plants for "chicken garden"?

[MoSo]

My chicks are only a few days old, but I want to start seeds for a "chicken garden" so they'll have something ready in a month or two. I used to grow lettuce on my porch in those long red plastic planters (about 3' long and not quite a foot wide), but I built myself a lettuce cart on wheels, so those planters are excess now. I thought I'd grow some plants to put in the run, both to attract bugs and for the chickens to eat. What would be the best things for chickens? Parsley? Marigolds? Once they are laying eggs, will various herbs and plants lead to an actual flavor in eggs, however faint?

Or will the 6 of them just devour the greenery so fast that it's pointless?

 

[Noncentzter]

I found these on a blog: miner's lettuce, savoy cabbage, sugar loaf and siberian dwarf kale...good luck with your chicken garden!

 

[A.T. Hagan]

Dark green leafy vegetables. What ever grows best in your area.

Clover.

Young tender grass.

.....Alan.

 

[Cetawin]

also, Sandhill Preservation has a "brooder mix" in spring and Fall variety that has various seeds for the chooks in the mix....I did the Spring version for my girls last year and they loved it. You can order it online from them too.

 

[crazyhen]

Greens of any kind, mustard, turnip, lettuces of any kind. They love them all. Gloria Jean

 

[jeremy]

Sunflowers! During the growing season you'll have big beautiful flowers in your garden, then as the season ends and the head start to droop you'll have so much fun watching your girls jump up trying to get the seeds! L0L My girls loved 'em. Most of the time the BOSS that you buy from your local feed store can be directly sowed into the ground and will grow.

 

[possumqueen]

If you should happen to be planning on a permanent garden spot, you might consider alfalfa. Grow it till it's ready to cut for hay, then cut some and dry it just as if you were going to feed it to cows. Put that aside for a winter treat for your girls.

Then put up a temporary pen around the future garden spot where you just cut the alfalfa. Let the chickens eat alfalfa, scratch for bugs and weeds, and generally tear up the ground.

The combination of alfalfa, poop, and scratched up dirt will be ready for whatever you want to plant there.

I love chickens in my garden!!!