Gardening with chickens (and other poultry)

[Daisy8s]

I just thought of my new favorite reason for having chickens around--they do all the deadheading for me! Okay, so they're deadheading the blooms before they blooms have actually died but who am I to be so picky when someone (er, something) else is doing the work for me?

I think of my chickens "helping" me in about the same way as my boys "helped" when they were toddlers. Don't look too closely at the results, just focus on the efforts!

 

[wyoDreamer]

and a good outlook on life

 

[Daisy8s]

and a good outlook on life

Huh, I guess so...though I wasn't intending to be so profound!

 

[Mingming]

Huh, I guess so...though I wasn't intending to be so profound!

People are always most profound when they don't mean to be.... It's when we try to be smart that we come off sounding silly. It's a human dilemma
Toddlers and chickens seem to make for a nice garden! I'm lovin' it!

 

[sonjap]

Hi all,
I'm a newbie this year and just discovered this thread. It seems like it's mostly about vegetable gardens, (which I do have), but my current dilemma is my flower beds, so I hope it's ok to join in here. My chickens are kept in a pen, but I let them free-range in the yard when I'm home. They are digging up my flower beds and flinging mulch everywhere and even sometimes digging up the flowers. My flower bed goes up against the side of the house and I can't think of a way to block out the chickens but still have it be attractive. I'm thinking as a last resort I could put chicken wire down on the ground of the beds, but then I would have to remove it every time I want to add some new plants. Does anyone have any ideas?

 

[Daisy8s]

That's a tough one--seems like everyone with free ranging chicken runs into this at some point. Here are some ideas I've read from others and/or tried myself.

1. Do a mulch of large rocks. So, plant your flowers but then cover the space around them with rocks large enough the chickens can't fling them around and/or are discouraged from scratching there. This has worked somewhat for me, but it's amazing how strong they are when motivated to scratch!

2. Place overturned crates atop the plants. I did this with my pumpkin mounds and it worked beautifully. First, the crate protected the seedlings and then the vines grew through the spaces in the crates. I happened to have green plastic crates that kinda blended into the scenery. You might try this with big, flopsy flowering plants that need some support anyway.

If you had large baskets with spaces between--or could knock out a few staves of an apple crate, for example--you could do this with a more natural-looking item than a plastic crate. I'd recommend burying the crate or basket a few inches in the earth for stability.

3. Create an ideal location away from your flower beds. Observe your chickens and try to figure out if there's a particular reason they scratch in the beds--is it to take dust bathes, looking for bugs, eating a certain plant? Maybe you can give them another dust bathing site, or give them access to your compost pile to find bugs, or plant something just for them to eat.

When my flock began crossing the road every day to hang out under my neighbor's pine trees I created more shade in my yard and also began throwing out some treats over here just before the time they'd usually cross the road. It isn't perfect but after a few weeks I've nearly broken their habit.

Good luck! Those chickens are so fun and so frustrating all at the same time!

 

[sonjap]

Those are some great ideas! Thanks!

 

[Adorkable]

Blech - guess I will just get gloves to pick hornworms off when I start growing tomatoes again.

I use chopsticks lol

 

[mymonkeybug]

One of my favorite ideas is having a chicken house in the middle of a garden site and using one half as a chicken run/garden waste and compost disposal, and the other half as a garden, and then switching them around every year or two. I've not tried it but it sounds brilliant.

This comment is similar to what we are planning on trying. The on paper plan is to have the permanent coop flush against the gardens fence(outside the garden). We will cut an opening in the fence for the ramp to come down out of the coop allowing the chickens free range in our fenced food garden. The garden itself is large and square with several raised beds. Our hope is that the hens will stay out of the raised beds and only forage from the spaces between the raised beds and in the smaller little plantings I plan to place for them such as some random lettuces, radishes, and other greens. Another reason for this is so our dogs don't kill our girls. We have a Boxer and a Boston Terrier and they are both major critter killers having had a blast with the squirrels, rabbits, and moles they have come across and been able to catch. We will eventually get a tractor so we can give the hens some time in other areas of the yard so they aren't eating from the depleted garden.

 

[canesisters]

So how's this for 'counting my chickens before they've hatched'? LOL

I've been trying to compost on an area that is going to be (I HOPE) a veggie garden this spring.
I've also been thinking about spring chicks - just like everyone else.
Which then made me think about expanding the chicken run...
Then I peeked back into this thread and got to thinking more about my 'hope-to-be garden' and management and using the chickens....
Then it just sort of came to me!! In order to have plenty of room for all those new chickens (that I don't have yet) I can simply expand my run to surround the garden!! TA-DA!! Instant chicken moat!
So now, without having anything more than a barely going compost pile - I've spent a good chunk of time figuring out the best placement for the gates, etc to make watering and such easier......
I've got WAY too much time on my hands this early in the morning.....

Here's the 'garden' on day one - back in Nov. You can see the coop & run way back there in the background.....