Chicken Crops in the garden

[Missy3b]

Because there is snow on the ground and I have cabin fever, I am planning my garden for the spring. I have been reading alot lately about growing crops for chickens. I would love ideas on plants to grow in the garden for a good supplement to their feed. We were thinking sunflowers and some lettuce crops but what other suggestions do you have?

 

[Big dreams]

squash, it saves well so you can use it later too.

 

[Missy3b]

I gave them pumpkin last year and they loved it. That's a good idea. Any other ideas? Anyone plant their garden with chickens in mind?

 

[Cats Critters]

I'm planting sunflowers,tomatoes, squash, pumpkins, lettuce, and corn for the chickens.

 

[Imp]

I used to plant sugar snap peas. I got the peas and the chickens got the vines. I also fed them the carrot tops, beet greens, chard, and the currants this year were so wormy I wouldn't eat them so to the chickens they went.

Imp

Also the first day I had chickens they ate all the leaves off the rhubarb. Ugh! thought I would be a 1 day chicken owner, but they were just fine. BTW I'm not suggesting Rhubarb.

 

[1shelby1]

As far as chicken gardening goes-there is a 'grow your own chicken pasture' seeds from Peaceful Valley that I've used.The seeds are a mix and get really good deep roots-so the chickens don't scratch all of them up-I will check :lading clover
trifoil
non-dormat alfalfa
iron and clay cowpeas
flax and buckwheat

The girls love it and the roots are deep and it will reseed

I've got some started,and covered with shade cloth in their run-just need to let the seeds get started before the girls find it!

 

[Dixiedoodle]

all the tomatoes the busted or were wormy, sunflowers, pumpkins, winter squash, oats,millet, buckwheat. This winter I planted 200 collards, mixed greens (three different plantings).. We just used all the collards yesterday and the greens look bad with all the snow/ice and freezing rain but they'll bounce back soon, I hope.

 

[Bullwinkle]

Mine ate some of everything I had planted except for green beans. (I had a really big garden). I gave them so much of some things they started to get tired of them (They really liked cucumbers and zuchini in the beginning but after (literally) several hundred, they got bored with them( they ate dozens of small watermelons and never really got tired of those). They'll seriously eat almost any vegetable.

I'd suggest just planting extra of what ever your family likes to eat. Any extra's give to the chickens.

 

[SallyF]

Kale, kale and more kale. Mine never let it get more than a couple of inches high before they demolish it!

 

[Ariel301]

While looking through a new seed catalog the other day, I had a crazy related thought. Our winters are too cold for pretty much any vegetables I have found, but I was looking at 'cover crops' and saw that they have a variety of peas intended to be planted on fallow fields and then tilled back in before planting a crop, to help enrich the soil. It says they are hardy to 10 degrees, which is colder than our winters really get...We only get into the 20s, which doesn't kill all vegetables but certainly stops them producing if they survive...so I was thinking....what if I get a big bag of that and plant it in the garden, let it grow all winter and use it as a chicken pasture during the day, and then it also helps fertilize my soil. I'm going to give it a go next winter. It can't hurt to try. I think my garden is big enough that 10-15 hens could graze on it for a few hours a day, and so cut down on feed costs.