Do you let your chickens into your garden?

[jillscoop]

In the mornings it's the "hilarious parade of multiple fowl" going out to the garden right behind my husband. The procession includes ducks geese turkeys and chickens, (yes they all get along) ... They'll walk around with him and love eating bugs & weeds... We don't leave the turkeys & chickens in the garden unattended only about 30 minutes every morning... Otherwise they play fowl games like "peck the tomato" and "hollow the melon". The geese and ducks stay longer and do not damage anything, we keep a temp fence around tender plants like carrot tops.

 

[Vicky2479]

i do as some of the others and only let them in when everything needs cleaning up, i have even penned of an extra area of my lawn to put them IN as most of it is weeds and i want them to clean it up before i plant new lawn in the spring, they have been in there for about 3 weeks and are nearly done. I have a rosmary plant that cant get a break, everytime i replant it they dig around it till its roots are bare again, am trying to find a new spot for it. They will also dig through any plant pots big enough for them to stand on. I have a plan (thanks to some other posts on BYC) to make their run more green and grubby for them this spring so they wont miss being able to get into the garden as much. So yes they will destroy a large garden bed in no time if allowed free access all the time.