chickens eat lawn grasses?

[NS2A]

In my experience, they will eat the weeds first, then the grass. So, keep the house moving or give them a big enough area!

 

[Cassandra]

Hey, correct me if I am getting this wrong, please. You WANT the chickens to clear the grass, right? So you can plant something else?

I have been doing some "raised bed gardening" research. What I read was that after you get all the grass and stuff gone, to cover the area with a piece of clear plastic for a length of time (I forget how long.) The heat generated underneath the plastic is supposed to kill all the remaining seeds. Then, supposedly, you have a clean slate for planting other things.

If that's what you want to do, you could get a piece of clear poly that is a little bigger than your chicken run. Each time you move the run (or is tractor the proper term) move your piece of poly to the newly cleared space and weight it down with bricks or firewood or something.. So after the second move, you have three spaces you are dealing with.

1) the space that the chickens are currently occupying.
2) the space the chickens just left that is covered with poly.
3) the space that was previously covered with poly, but is now planted in new grass seeds.

Sounds good in theory, anyway. LOL

Cassandra (not a landscaper)

 

[coffeemama]

My chicken a free run in the yard, so they don't do much to my grass-they will dig up my garden beds something fierce though! I just have to understand that they will eat some of my new plants coming up-along with the weeds.