Chicken pen also used as grape arbor??

[Kuntry Klucker]

Hi All

We are starting our flock this spring and also planting crops in our backyard.
We were thinking about using the chicken pen for the duel purpose
of housing chickens and also a grape arbor. Has any one done
this or have any opinions about it either way.

We know that the chickens will eat some of the grapes which is fine.

Just wanting some opinions from other Chicken keepers or gardners.

Thanks

 

[Chicky Tocks]

Good luck with that! The chickens will eat ALL of the grapes that they can reach and that includes those that they jump for.
We have muscadines in our back yard and our birds free range daily. We have never harvested those vines because they chickens nom them and don't leave enough for anything but to taste for us.

 

[kitchwitch]

I've just planted some grapes next to the hoop house my chickens use as a run. It's covered with small hardware cloth and I also zip tied plastic lattice over the run where the grapes would be growing. It look quite the mess at the moment, but hopefully next summer it'll be mostly covered by vines and leaves. I've been wanting to grow grapes for a while but my husband didn't want to have to mow around a grape trellis, so this was a great way to get what I want

 

[Kev]

My good friend has grapes growing over the chicken run. There are no perches in the run part(it's 6' tall) so the chickens are not able to destroy the grapes, plus she pulls the young fruit clusters through the chicken wire so they grow out inside the run part, which doubles as protecting the fruit from wild birds... Her grape vines do extremely well, so well they get excess fruit, so she often cuts off a ripe bunch and feeds to her chickens and turkeys as a treat. Everybody quite happy with this set up... I think it looks quite beautiful and cool in the summer when the grapes are in full leaf with the fruit clusters hanging down from the ceiling.

Be aware that grape leaves are very delicious to chickens, so you need to protect the vines until they are tall enough to be out of their reach, if you also let them free range. If you let them grow as a bush or on the ground, they definitely will get 'destroyed' by chickens.

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

https://www.backyardchickens.com/web/viewblog.php?id=56638
View Gallo del Cielo's (another BYC'er) beautiful work!

 

[pokeytolman]

One side of our run serves as a grape arbor. We actually started out with the grape arbor, then turned it into a chicken run last spring. It is really a great source of shade in the summer. Also, because grape vines grow very rapidly throughout the summer, we are constantly pruning it. As the chickens love the leaves, we just toss the leaves (stems and all) into the chicken run--another source of greens. I believe the leaves are fairly nutritious.

 

[Kuntry Klucker]

Wow! thanks for all the great posts. I had no idea that so many people used their chicken
pens as a grape arbor too. It was just a wild idea that HD had I thought I was throw it
out there just to see what kind of reply I would get. It would be a great source of shade
for the chickens in the summer. We live in Tennessee and it does get quite hot here in the summer.


Thanks again everyone.

I love BYC!!