Chickens and gardening question

[ninny]

I have grapes and im thinking of getting raspberries and balckberries. Whats the best way to protect them?

 

[Beekissed]

Good fencing!

 

[A.T. Hagan]

You can fence them in or the chickens out.

.....Alan.

 

[ninny]

One another question whille im thinking of it. Will chickens bother roses?

 

[wing it]

my chicks will eat just about anything I try to keep them out of the garden most of the time . I do let them in the fall and early spring to get bugs and weeds. That said I find it easier to fence the whole garden then to protect one or two plants or beds

 

[ninny]

Would bird netting on some post work as a barrier?

 

[rhoda_bruce]

I can't speak of raspberries. Blackberries grow wild here. No one ever plants them, but cuts them down as a weed. I can't see that the chickens do any damage to the blackberry vines but the goat sure does.
If I should want to train a few to grow on a fence or arbor, I would just protect the very bottom with a little chicken wire and try to train it to grow as high as possible. That way the nitrogen in the poop won't burn the plant. I can't say what they will do to the flowers or berries, so if its high at least you will have some yield. Most of the year the blackberries aren't producing, so if you pasture your chickens, as I do to have them where you need them, for whatever reason, then you can probably allow for blackberries and evict the chickens from that area when the flowers start to appear.

 

[dichotomymom]

Our raspberries have never been touched. Not sure if they haven't noticed or they have and they don't like getting jabbed with thorns.

 

[ky chicks]

Bird netting worked for me. When the girls got into my garden, I put up a quick fence with rolls of netting (only 3' wide) and some thin metal posts that I think are intended for electric fences. I think they could easily have gotten over the top, but never did.

 

[lighthawk]

Don't have chickens yet but I do have grapes, blueberries and strawberries. Trust me when your berries start producing you are going to want to cover/surround them with bird netting just to keep wild birds from harvesting the majority of your crop. I have hundreds of wild blackberry bushes growing out back (30 acres) and when they start to ripen (They dont all ripen at the same time) I have to be out there daily to beat the birds from getting to them first. They still probably get 80% of them anyway. Best to set something up when you plan the beds so you can get in and they cant. set the netting out when they begin to bud and remove it after the harvest and you will greatly extend the life of the netting as sunlight and weather will eventually break it down. good luck.