Chickens and lawns. .need some advice!

Has the grass set good solid roots? It's not that the eating it will hurt it any (it won't), it's the scratching they do. If the grass hasn't established good, deep roots, it'll come up easy as they scratch. Of course, if it's a big yard and you only have three, they'll spread the scratching around and probably won't tear up anything in just one place. Best just to watch 'em and see what they do for a day or two.

Yes, fence off the garden! They'll eat all the bugs, but when the bugs are gone, the veggies are next, heh.

 

I built my pen on well established grass. While building the pen I let the chicks play in the back yard an hour a day. After a few days I had to stop because I could see the patches of missing grass.

Long story short, I put the chicks in the new pen and after a week the grass is GONE. They ate the grass, the roots, and scratched the rest! Mine love grass!

 

Let's put it this way. We never will have to cut our grass again, although we didnt have much of a lawn, area-wise, to start with, living in the woods on a mountain. They are very efficient grass-cutters.

 

Our lawn stays nice and green because of the extra nutrients the chickens put on it. It also can get a little messy! Good Luck skatcatla!

 

If I could get away without having to cut my grass, that would be a HUGE blessing!

My chicks were outside all day today in a makeshift pen. They like to eat the grass, which shouldn't be a problem. However, they also like to lie in the dirt ... which means they have to scratch up a bunch of grass to make a little dirt-bowl. Within about 2 hours they had made 3 of them.

I know some people give them sand (especially mixed with diatomaceus-however-you-spell-it-earth) which is what I hope to do, and that might cut down on the purposeful scratching to reach dirt. I guess they will probably scratch anyway though.

trish

 

Our back lawn is probably 2000 square feet and our 10 chickens are fine on it. They don't scrach in the grass (it's pretty thick) but they eat the blades.

 

You could always watch them and see how they do.

With my chicks, I have noticed that the dirt itself in a thin patch causes them to scratch. They don't try where the grass is thick. I don't know for sure, but I would think that if your grass is healthy, and if they already have a place to dig and scratch, they would do most if not all of their scratching there?

It's worth a try. I'm sure they can't totally denude the yard in 30 minutes at any rate. You need at least 3 chickens for that. (I'm just kidding!)

Good luck with it! I'm sure they'd enjoy it anyway.

trish <--- NOT a chicken expert!