Flower eating chickens

[New Mom of 16]

My chicken have pretty much stripped my Begonias of their flowers!!! Is their anything I can do to keep my chickens away from what I have left for flowers?

 

[Big dreams]

I cover the things I don't want them to eat or fence it. Pretty hard to teach a chicken not to eat something like that. Maybe put a sprinkler up as a deterent? Mine hate the water.

 

[Brindlebtch]

Fence it.

 

[The Zoo]

Fencing is the only way to keep them off of things and even then I've found my rooster in the asparagus bed at times.

They don't seem to eat my penstemon if that helps.

 

[GrannySue]

Mmmmm. Dahlia leaf salad! That's what mine like. I'm building a higher fence today because after they dine, they like a dust bath. In the Dahlia bed.
Silly birds.

 

[GuineaFowlKepper]

Surround the plant with wire. It works for us.

 

[HandyMom]

I used to call my house Ft Knox because of all the fences, but then I realized I should really call it "Ft Cluck." The lady at the store always laughs when she sees me with a roll of chicken wire! I keep saying, "Just one more roll should do it!" And I've said that quite a few times!

I made 2' tall hardware cloth "cans" for all my hostas, and I have made note of the plants they don't like too eat and will be replanting some defoliated places next year. It was a real learning year for us as this was our first year to have chickens. I had chickens when I was a kid, but we only had a couple at a time and we let them free range on our 2 acres. Urban hen keeping is an entirely different matter!

Good luck. Try geraniums - they don't like them. And they don't mess with Coral Bells or Lady's Mantle too much.

 

[luvarabhorses]

I gave up on vertical fences for my flowers. I lay the wire (I have left over horse safe fence) on the ground, cut holes in it and planted the flowers through it. The flowerbed destroying is not about eating your flowers. It is a whole luxurious past time that MUST include scratching, making holes, dustbaths, looking for bugs, ripping flowers out by the roots- take that away and leave just the idea of pecking at flowers- forget it! At least that is what I have figured out.

Another thing is stick with big bodied non flying types. This is my ideal chicken, she moves slow, doesn't fly, lays pretty green eggs, doesn't feel the need to go very far, looks like Ma Kettle, also fun to cuddle and love on. (She is a cochin/ee cross). Some of her children are giving me a bit of a hard time but they will slow down and be just like her if I hang in there.

Her Mom, Bunny

Also Her delinquent child