Chickens and our garden

[Joken]

Are they trained to come to you (aka come for the tasty snacks)? Might be something you want to work on first.

My 8 week old chicks are still too terrified to do anything but head back into the run at the first sign of a slight breeze, so no free range time for them quite yet.

We are training them to come into the coop in the evening using a little scratch. Most of them come from the run into the coop when we open the coop door and call them. A couple is slow learners.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I suspect they would raise havoc in the garden. Is my assumption correct?

Probably more than you want. They are still babies but they will grow. Initially they will probably still pretty close to the coop and run when you first let them out but they will widen their horizons. As they get bigger they are more capable of doing more damage.

You can have different issues. They seem to love eating all things as they are sprouting and they can eat a lot of sprouts. Sounds like you are past that phase now but there is always next year. As others mentioned they are more likely to peck a ripe tomato, pepper, or such a time or two rather than eat the whole thing. Would that bother you or would you just cut it out? They will eat some green leaves of some plants and leave others alone. They won't eat a whole head of cabbage, broccoli floret, or kale leaf, just take bites. They should leave tomato leaves alone if they have other options. Tomato leaves are pretty bitter.

They love to scratch, especially in mulch. They can find a lot of nice creepy crawlies to eat in mulch. That can be in your veggie garden or in a landscaping bed around your house. They love to scatter mulch everywhere. This is not confined to a veggie garden.

They like to take dust baths. That might be in your garden or it might not. Mine tend to stay fairly close to the coop for dust baths, usually in a shady spot.

They poop wherever they go. As long as they are moving around it is scattered and shouldn't build up to dangerous levels as far as being hot enough to kill your plants but you may encounter a deposit anywhere.

I often suggest you try things to see for yourself how it works for you. We all have different layouts and flocks so we get different results. We can have different tolerances too. If you try it may take a while before they find your garden. You may find you can live with it. But I keep mine fenced to keep chickens out.