chicken garden ideas...

[chickenchalupa]

I want to plant a garden for my chickens this year and i want to know what i should plant and what chickens really like.

 

[gckiddhouse]

Mine loved my jalepeno plant!!!LOL! I guess they would love any pepper plant. They also love love loved my tomatillos that fell before ripening, which is interesting because they DON'T like tomatoes. Anything that you plant that needs to be "thinned" is great for chickens. We gave them the thinnings from our carrots, beets, radishes, turnips, and others. When we are ready to replant, we let the hens in to "clean up". They eat excess bugs, rotting leaves, and they do their scratching which does wonders for the soil!! As does their droppings.

Greens!!! Plant greens. Chard, lettuces, and such. Great calcium source for them and they love them.

Also, grass. I don't know if you want that, but grass is so good for chickens and they love it. You could plant clover type grass if you like that. Mine also come up on my patio to eat my cape honeysuckle. They love it. All the lower branches are bare. Would be a nice tall plant in your chicken garden. They are very hardy and the blooms are edible, too.

Have fun with that!!

 

[wingnut1]

Neat question!!!

Turnip greens! My hens LOVE them!!!! They are inexpensive at the store, but they are fun to have fresh. They seem to love any/all greens I give to them. They would like green beans and snap peas too!

And cherry tomatoes! If you get the small ones - like grape cherry tomatoes - they will chow them down in one gulp!

Of course - if your garden zone is OK for grapes, a grape vine would be fun, and so would a blueberry bush!!! Strawberries would be a fav as well!

Tough to find something they *won't* eat!

Have fun!!!

 

[Nemo]

Quote:
Woe be unto any chicken found amongst the strawberries, for there shall be no mercy!

 

[wingnut1]

 

[dani813]

I stick with the kales and other greens for mine. They would have corn too, but, I haven't been able to keep the squirrels from getting it first.

 

[Rufflemyfeathers]

For us and my chickens I will be plantin turnips mustard greens, collards, spinach, cabbage, broccli, cauliflower, and much more already received all my seeds from Burpee..but then I live in Florida..I just cleaned out my winter garden and they chowed down my left over broclli stalks..wow talk about demisnish and they are only 10 weeks old about.

 

[ThornyRidge]

In planning ahead for warmer weather.. my crew absolutely loved watermelon.. anytime I cleaned one formyself I gave them whatever was left plus a little extra and all that would be left was a thin green sheath of watermelon rind.. mine also loved grapes and cherry tomatoes.

 

[al6517]

Mine loved big zuchini squash and cucumbers, both easy to grow and the yield is high and prolific. plus they will grow anywhere. I grew an awful lot along a fenceline in my back pasture, it kept them stuffed all summer long, and did not take up space in my family garden plot.

AL

 

[FarmerDenise]

Chickens can and usually will eat just about anything people eat. So plant stuff you would like and share it with them. Ours eat sunflower leaves, chard, broccoli leaves, tomatoes, corn leaves, watermelon, zucchini, musk melon, peaches, asparagus tops, lettuce, I can go on and on. Just make sure you avoid giving them stuff that might be toxic like tomatoe vines - people shouldn't eat those either, whereas sunflower leaves are edible.
I do grow millet and broomcorn for them. I also feed those to our rabbit and make specialty brooms out of the broom corn.