Gardening with chickens (and other poultry)

[farmer9989]

Have you noticed the Mosquitos are already out! Here is a homemade trap to help keep you and the kiddos from being a blood donor!!!

HOMEMADE MOSQUITO TRAP:
Items needed:
1 cup of water
1/4 cup of brown sugar
1 gram of yeast
1 2-liter bottle

HOW:
1. Cut the plastic bottle in half.
2. Mix brown sugar with hot water. Let cool. When cold, pour in the bottom half of the bottle.
3. Add the yeast. No need to mix. It creates carbon dioxide, which attracts mosquitoes.
4. Place the funnel part, upside down, into the other half of the bottle, taping them together if desired.
5. Wrap the bottle with something black, leaving the top uncovered, and place it outside in an area away from your normal gathering area. (Mosquitoes are also drawn to the color black.)

Change the solution every 2 weeks for continuous control.

haven't tried this but ya never know

 

[irischick]

Yes, I was out last night working on the coop - low and behold there were a few flying past my face. It was unbelievable!

Thanks for posting the recipe. I will definitely be taking advantage of that.

 

[Daisy8s]

Great thread. We just started with chickens and are avid gardeners. My husband is worried about what they would do to his tomatoes and other precious edibles. I think they will be fine. Also, I have a greenhouse where I grow about 100 exotic hybrid hibiscus. They all get fertilized, with non organic fertilizer. Will they reek havoc if they follow me into the Greenhouse? And if they eat a dropped leaf or flower, will that harm them?

Love your hibiscus! I lived in Papua New Guinea for awhile and always associate that flower with my time there. Once I went to a huge valley-wide party. There were about 1,000 nationals there and every person had taken one hibiscus blossom and placed it square on the top of their heads. Imagine looking across a valley and up a hillside and seeing hundreds of black heads with a single red or pink or orange blossom on it--so beautiful!

Well, I can only tell you what happens in my garden. First, my chickens will absolutely demolish any bed of seedlings. One day the gate got left open and they cleaned out two 4x12 beds in less than an hour. If they didn't eat it they scratched it up--every plant completely gone by 7 little chickens in minutes. Second, they love tomatoes or anything yellow/orange/red. i compromised by training my tomatoes very high so the chickens got everything up to about 2 feet off the ground (they'd jump and peck into the bottoms of hanging fruit) and I got everything from there on up.

The best solution is to have a good fence and let them in only at certain times in the season, as others have said.

Sorry, I don't know if hibiscus are toxic to chickens. Are they to humans, if ingested? If they're okay for humans I'm sure they're okay for chickens.

 

[rbaker0345]

Hi, I 'm new to this thread, but I have been moderating the garden swap. I saw the previous post about chickens demolishing your seedlings and beds. I too use fences extensively, but I love my flower garden, I am a gardener by trade, so its a bit of an obsession. I usually end up at my wits end by the end of the year, but this year I'm sitting pretty. I found a thing called a havahart sprayaway. Its a motion activated sprinkler. You attach it to a hose and when something walks in front of it, it sprays them. You can adjust the range of spray and the sensitivity of it. It works like a charm and my plants are coming up without being scratched to nothing.

Also, hibiscus is safe for humans, you can make tea from some part of it, I cant remember which. Its quite pleasant.

 

[Kikiriki]

I'm interested if anyone has ideas for a good green manure crop that the chickens will turn over for me and eat when it's ready.  Clover or alfalfa?  I've been eyeballing the Johnny's catalog and can't  decide.  

I purchased a few pounds of Chicken Forage Blend at groworganic.com to seed in my backyard where my girls range.  It creates what Jessie Bloom terms as "Eco-Turf". Puts nitrogen into the soil and Omega-3's into the hens!

It consists of:
Bison intermediate ryegrass

Tetraploid perennial ryegrass

Common Flax

Buckwheat

Tetraploid annual ryegrass

Japanese millet

Red clover, OMRI approv. coating

Strawberry clover, OMRI coat

Alfalfa, OMRI coat

Ladino clover OMRI coat

Broadleaf Trefoil OMRI coat


 

Thanks for posting the link: I just ordered 5 lbs. In two weeks my girls will be thrilled!

 

[blipit007]

Thanks for posting the link: I just ordered 5 lbs. In two weeks my girls will be thrilled!

This sounds great!

Yeah, Hibiscus are safe to eat. Really sweet nectar too! But I'm concerned about the fertilizer I use. It is non organic. Plus I use Kondos. Which is a systemic bug repellent. Works wonders but I can imagine real toxic. My bunnies grab a leaf or fallen bud or two with no issues. But just thought I'd ask.

 

[pmcatnip]

Hi everyone. This is a great topic. We've just built several raised beds and are putting row covers on them to keep the chickens out, and I came here to see what everyone else is doing with their flocks/gardens. You've got some nice setups.

I got a nice chuckle walking through the yard recently. May I present Exhibit A, where once there was a box of chives:


And Exhibit B, where I discovered something suspiciously chive-like and onion-smelling growing in both the front and back yards:

Finally, Exhibit C, in which the chive-eating and seed-pooping vectors present themselves for questioning:

Now when DH mows the yard it smells like onions.

 

[Kikiriki]

Seed vector confirmed! I never feed my chickens in the coop: do not want to attract rodents in there. Coop has dirt floor atop massive oak tree roots. Coop moved two weeks ago, rain occured one week ago, now have milo, millet, and sunflowers sprouting in old coop location, in eact shape of coop!

 

[bnjrob]

Seed vector confirmed! I never feed my chickens in the coop: do not want to attract rodents in there. Coop has dirt floor atop massive oak tree roots. Coop moved two weeks ago, rain occured one week ago, now have milo, millet, and sunflowers sprouting in old coop location, in eact shape of coop!

 

[lazy gardener]

Great thread. We just started with chickens and are avid gardeners. My husband is worried about what they would do to his tomatoes and other precious edibles. I think they will be fine. Also, I have a greenhouse where I grow about 100 exotic hybrid hibiscus. They all get fertilized, with non organic fertilizer. Will they reek havoc if they follow me into the Greenhouse? And if they eat a dropped leaf or flower, will that harm them?

Your flowers are absolutely drop dead eye candy!!!