chickens in the garden

[chicknmania]

For some reason our chickens have never bothered our vegetable garden (knock on wood). Flowers are another story, they will eat every new flower and flower bud they can get to, and wildflowers too. I think its the location of the vegetable garden. It's out in the middle of a field, there's not really anything close they can use for cover except the garden itself, and I think the roosters will just not let the hens go out there. We planted tomatoes, peppers, and ground cherries last year. We had more problems with groundhogs than anything. Our chickens aren't real crazy about tomatoes anyway, so that may be another reason.

 

[SewingDiva]

Quote:
This was exactly what I've been wondering. We have raised beds (pretty high about 2 feet tall) for veggies and our garden sits at the edge of our wooded property, which has tons of native plants, wildflowers, ground cover and places for chickens to hide and hang out. I'm hoping they will stay in the wooded areas in the summer instead of hoppng into our raised beds.

I guess I'll know soon enough!

Phyllis

 

[buttercup2]

I also have raised beds, but my girls love to go in and dig and nip. Does anyone have any ideas for just covering the raised beds instead of fencing the whole garden?

 

[MoonbeamQueen]

Chickens will eat your garden down to nothing! Here's what we're doing. Two years ago we installed a 30x40' five foot tall chain link fence. Last year built a small coop in against one 30' long sides. Then we got our chickens. They've cleared the whole area of any weeds and added their poop for a whole year. We periodically rake out all the bedding from the coop and just spread it around their yard as well. This year, we are adding more chain link and second gate down the middle to split the 30x40' area into two halves, each 30x20'. Some of the hens can fly over the top, so we're adding 2' extensions to the top of the coop side (husband says he 'has a plan') to keep them where we want them. I'll clip one wing as well. We will plant our garden in the other half. At the end of the growing season we'll leave the gate open and the birds can do my weeding for me again until next spring. Ideally, I'd alternate gardening each side, but I didn't think far enough ahead to do it that way!

 

[FarmerCarl]

They will eat almost everything in your garden. Fence them or the garden, whichever is least expensive. We're fencing the birds this year because we are planting two large gardens and it will be easier to confine the birds.

I had 27 tomato plants last year and got a whopping 7 quarts and 11 pints of tomato sauce canned. Thanks to my girls. They love, loved the tomatoes. They loved the peppers when they turned red, they loved my green beans and my corn and, and, and...

You get the idea.