Florida greens for chickens?

[Ddurlak]

Does anyone from Florida know of a good and easy to grow green that I can feed my chickens?

 

[Pet Duck Boy]

I don't feed my girls lettuce, spinach, kale, or any other greens because they simply won't take them. Mine get all the greens in my yard, I took trips to parks and gathered other weeds or seeds from the weed stalks, and scattered them in my backyard. That was 5 months ago, and now I make sure my dad and I don't mow as often to let the grass/weeds grow. 5 minutes in my backyard and my girls are stuffed with all the grass they can get. I also bought a cheap bag of assorted bird seed and sprinkled it around my yard a couple months ago, it grew and they had a party with all of that, and some of the birdseed is still sprouting to this day.

 

[gordonburrito]

Kale is a favorite in my flock. I like it because it has the additional benefit of being very cold tolerant. So, it is a source of greens when others have gone dormant. We had a fairly cold winter here in Missouri and ours even overwintered through it (to our surprise). The only problem are cabbage white butterflies. They love to lay and eat Kale during their caterpillar stage of development. We don't use any chemicals in our yard, so pesticides were not a option. Fortunately our hens have learned to inspect our plants for delicious caterpillars on a regular basis, so that was only a temporary problem. They do munch the Kale plants a bit during the inspection but we have plenty for all and the plants bounce back nicely.

 

[Ddurlak]

Quote:
Thanks for the bird seed idea. My girls don't go out free range yet, so I was looking for something I could grow and snip off for them. Thanks again

 

[twentynine]

Got my run seperated into three areas. Total run is 20X30, have it seperated into 3 equal 10X20 areas, the coop is in the middle with a seperate door for each sub-run.

I grow grass, millet, turnips, rye, corn in the runs and I rotate the chickens.

They also get all the grass I pull up and clippings I pick up, and anything else that I think they my be interested in.

 

[Royd]

The trick is to decide that you want to grow some greens, for yourself. Especially, collards. You'll never get a one, if you don't protect them, from the chickens.