Chickens and Gardening

[Pensmaster]

Yes I could at this point it hasn’t been finished. I’ve received all the free dirt and fencing and it’s ready for putting together. To complicate things I’ll have two breeds allowing each a separate time in the run. At least that’s the plan.

I would put a pop door on each side of your coop if that is an option, and then put a dividing fence. Or you could do a pop door in the middle and have a fence panel/gate that could direct them to the right or the left as they exit the coop.

 

[tash]

I like to let the chickens go through my garden after frost and in the weeks leading up to planting for some bug control. If you have a garden that needs to stay pretty (like a front flowerbed) then they will go in there and dig lots of holes, especially near the house where it's dry. So a run is a good solution to this. I make my daughter shepard them when I have tomatoes growing if she wants to free range. She made a run extension out of chicken wire for when she didn't want to follow them around and keep them away from all the misc tomatoes. The also ate all of the strawberries one year.

 

[chickengeorgeto]

Bumble foot in my experience is confined to roosters and hens who are excessively fat, and are flying down on ground that is insufficiently soft thus aggravating or keeping small wounds open until the wrong bacteria can enter.

The advice about not using wood shavings sounds like something that Green Peace or the Sierra Club would say. I raised or helped to raise 10s of thousands of chickens on pine shavings and I never saw a case of bumble foot until I started raising game chickens and had some 8 foot tall roost in fly pens with a hard packed dirt floor. Even then only the heaviest roosters seemed affected.

 

[HenHouse4Life]

Are you wanting the chickens to purposefully be around your garden? If the beds are going to be raised and you just want the chickens to get some grass and such you could always build grazing boxes for the girls. These are relatively inexpensive to DIY and will bring them lots of joy!
Best of luck to you and your flock!

 

[SW31]

My chickens LOVE the raised beds. Seriously you will have to fence the beds otherwise they’ll eat everything. That’s when they’re not using it as a bird bath!

 

[Kimlaxmom]

Thank you for all the suggestions and advise. Really cool video Lazy Gardener!
As far as size a few 12x15 raised beds.
I plan on making a spiral herb garden as well using rocks as the boarder.

 

[m1chelle1]

TBH it totally depends on your chickens....id be very careful with it because my chickens would absolutely destroy a garden within a few days just from foraging and eating all of the green they could get their beaks on. Some other chickens aren't as destructive it seems, and maybe don't forage like mine do. Moral of the story is that you may want to look at some way to potentially protect your garden from the chickens in case they love dem greens as much as mine do!

Cheers

 

[aart]

chickens would absolutely destroy a garden within a few days

...or as little as a few minutes.