Chu say Garden: What to plant with chickens around - Experience needed.

[ChuSayBok]

Ok, I'm not quite sure if this was the place to post this or not, but I did a search and found one great but relatively nonspecific thread. So I'm starting this one to get opinions and experience from those who have gone before. I've learned a lot from my chu: English ivy and azaleas are not to be touched, wood sorrel, nutgrass (oh that bane of farmers,) and clover are delicacies and even medicinal. This will be the first year I've done a garden since I started with the chickens, and I'm sure it will be interesting. We did have a small green winter garden away from their quarters that they didn't mess with last year, but I'm going a little bigger this year. So questions:

1. What are great things to plant just for chickens inside their borders?

2 What things must be protected from chu at all costs lest they be destroyed? (I presume tomato and most seedlings would be in this one)

3. What vegetable is absolutely safe from them? (meaning they won't bother it)

4. What should they absolutely not be exposed to? (my chickens won't mess with poisonous ornamental stuff, most of which grows wild here, like the English ivy; but I wondered if they might be attracted to something toxic that people grow in gardens normally but don't eat, say rhubarb leaves are supposed to be bad
We are having a balmy, if sunless day here today, so my condolences to those of you still in the throes of the arctic freeze. It will be awhile before planting, but I'm cleaning out all the poo and distributing for future fertilizer. I also have a romantic notion of cultivating enough food not to have to buy it for them at the feed store next winter, so that will be another experiment. Looking forward to what you guys have to say. And getting excited about gardening with chu!

 

[Lauren Kim]

No avocado. That's all I need to say.
Chickens kinda eat anything in their paths... so a bitten garden is inevitable haha.

 

[Abriana]

No milk weed or hemlock. You can google good herbs/plants for chickens. Google natural remedies for chicken sicknesses that way if they get sick you’ll have a natural option already there. Also eating certain types of herbs helps prevent some illnesses. Garden and chicken remedies-win win!!

 

[lazy gardener]

Good thread topic. As for getting stuff to grow in the run: waste of time IMO, unless you make grow frames covered with wire to keep them from digging plants up by the roots. In the garden, I don't let them enter until I'm done with it. they are too destructive. I toss any spoiled/overgrown veggies to them. Keep a deep composting litter in the run, so they get EVERYTHING.

While "they say" rhubarb leaves are bad, this is my flock experience: My birds have 4 acres of my land, plus a strip of neighbor's land to work. This includes lawn, veggie and flower gardens, woods, weedy/shrubby areas between lawn and woods, and an orchard. Many areas are BTE style with lots of yummies buried in the wood chips. When I let my flock into my garden, they IMMEDIATELY make a bee line to the rhubarb, and skeletonize those leaves. EVERY FALL, without fail, they do this. So, my chooks pay no mind to the "they say" folks, and they eat what they want when they can get it. Now, I think my birds are smarter than the average Joe, and know that there's a benefit to be had from eating rhubarb leaves. I'm guessing it has antihelminthic properties.

 

[RUNuts]

antihelminthic drugs, such as diethylcarbamazepine citrate (Hetrezan), used for treatment of roundworms and other parasites

Got it. In case anyone else needed to google the word of the day.

 

[lazy gardener]

 

[RUNuts]

After listening to BTE utube stuff, and there is a lot out there, I went to throwing everything green in the coop. They will clean an avocado skin and almost suck it inside out. Dried garlic paper/skin is a favorite. A few others will be tested and left for later.

Onions aren't messed with. Lemon and oranges are occasionally. Banana leaves they loved. I cooked a spaghetti squash and tossed the outer rind in to compost. They ate it within 3 days. This is the hard, brittle outer skin. Pumpkin or other squash gets the insides cleaned and then the skin is eaten.

Compost. Good for what ails you.

 

[rosemarythyme]

1. What are great things to plant just for chickens inside their borders?

Anything they can eat they'll enjoy (mine enjoyed peas, kale, parsley, strawberry), but the plants won't live long enough to make it worth it, if the chickens are given full access.

You can try a set up like mine:
On the left side I have raised garden beds and during growing season I fence each bed with chicken wire and bird netting. The chickens are allowed to have anything there that grows past the chicken wire.

Last year I also put a raised back behind the run and used the back of the run to trellis some pea plants. Anything that grew over the hardware cloth and into the run, the chickens were allowed to have.

2 What things must be protected from chu at all costs lest they be destroyed? (I presume tomato and most seedlings would be in this one)

3. What vegetable is absolutely safe from them? (meaning they won't bother it)

Nothing's safe. Even if they won't eat it they'll tear it out of the ground just to spite you.

 

[Mrs. K]

Mine won't touch potato skins. Other than that, they get everything. I put quite a bit of bedding (old hay) in the coop and in the run. They stir it up, I pile it and stir it up, makes very good addition to the garden as mulch... with the theory that the chickens have eaten all the weed seeds. That is an unproven theory, but one I still keep. With deep mulching, the weeds are not too bad.

FENCE securely the garden, they can destroy a mighty big garden while you are having a 5 minute conversation with your mother... I know.

As for growing feed, my aunty, used to section of part of the run, and plant oats, then in the fall she would let them in. I don't know how much she saved, I have never done it.

MRs k