Chickens and Gardens

[macdog123]

Hi all,
I'm in the mood to spruce up my garden this year and I'm wondering how cautious you all are with plants. My chickens are free range and roam the entire neighborhood, so they are already exposed to any number of plants that may or may not be edible. I've seen them devour entire bushes and they definitely love to sample things. That being said, they've never managed to eat anything that ended up being fatal or making them sick. Can I rely on their survival instincts to keep them safe, or should I be picky about what I plant in my yard?

 

[nuthatched]

Usually Toxic plants are bitter so they'll avoid them.

 

[Mrs. K]

I would worry more about your plants. Getting plants started that are exposed to chickens can be very diffiucult. You about have to either fence the chickens in or out of the garden.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

Generally their instincts will keep them safe. Especially where yours have already been roaming. I have seen circumstances where older chicks turned out to free range for the first time with no parental guidance or prior exposure to greenery will rush to succulent but toxic plants. But that’s due to their inexperience pared with an instinct to eat lots of greenery that had been artificially denied to them during their development.

You’ll have more of an issue with them sabotaging your gardening efforts. They’ll leave things along until they learn its food value. I have to garden by excluding them from most crops and only planting things they don’t like or grows at a faster pace than they can eat outside the exclusion zones.

 

[macdog123]

I would worry more about your plants. Getting plants started that are exposed to chickens can be very diffiucult. You about have to either fence the chickens in or out of the garden.

Hahaha, very true! Thank you

 

[macdog123]

Generally their instincts will keep them safe. Especially where yours have already been roaming. I have seen circumstances where older chicks turned out to free range for the first time with no parental guidance or prior exposure to greenery will rush to succulent but toxic plants. But that’s due to their inexperience pared with an instinct to eat lots of greenery that had been artificially denied to them during their development.

You’ll have more of an issue with them sabotaging your gardening efforts. They’ll leave things along until they learn its food value. I have to garden by excluding them from most crops and only planting things they don’t like or grows at a faster pace than they can eat outside the exclusion zones.

Awesome, thank you

 

[Perris]

Can I rely on their survival instincts to keep them safe

yes, by and large. As others have said, you may need to protect some of your new plantings while they get established, and if you choose plants carefully, you could make it a chicken paradise They like cover, so shrubs, especially some evergreens for year round use.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

Awesome, thank you

Just today on my day off my daughter and I put up a barrier to keep my free rangers out of my tomatoes. They won’t bother the plants themselves but they’ll decimate green tomatoes just before they’re about to change colors. Apparently the seeds are viable at that point because the chickens will cause tomatoes to volunteer all over the homestead from the green tomato seeds.

There’s no barrier I can easily throw up that the chicken’s can’t fly over, but they seem to dislike flying into narrow areas. So I make the beds no wider than 4 feet.

 

[SierraView]

Chickens will destroy a garden. Worry about keeping them out of the food you grow for the family. Chickens get to free range garden area at the end of season.

 

[GCrumb]

Chickens will destroy a garden. Worry about keeping them out of the food you grow for the family. Chickens get to free range garden area at the end of season.

I noticed that a seed company's poultry pasture mixes have the same plants as are used for nitrogen-fixing soil-improving cover-crops. Clover, field peas, alfalfa, buckwheat. One could probably let the chickens eat the winter cover-crop at the start of the season.