gardening with chickens...help!

[clucky2]

I'm a true BACKYARD chicken keeper, and love to garden. Of course this presents some challenges, but I'm determined to create some kind of balance. My chickens are let out in the yard for about 4 hrs. every day. This seems fair. I have NO snails or dandelions, YEA! I can put the veggie garden behind fencing, so that will work, but my flower beds are taking some abuse. Some plants are more chicken resistant than others, and I'm wondering if there isn't a list of plants that work better for chicken yards! I'm thinking of using rocks and mesh around sensitive areas.
Ideas anyone?!
Thanks , Cathy

 

[Imp]

Shrubs, trees and fence

My hens don't really mess with the plants. But I have wire fencing around the smaller plants, mostly to keep them from scratching the plants up.

They haven't touched the unprotected Asian lilies, Iris, pond plants and rarely peck at the shrubs.

Imp

 

[codybird]

You can only garden FOR chickens, unless you have a fence.

 

[Anny]

When my chickens are out, I watch them carefully and if they get to close to the flowers I push to back to the grass. It works out nicely.

 

[BeardedLadyFarm]

I would be interested in a list as well. They certainly seem to have their preferences.

I started my garden, and my chickens this spring. They have taken out a good number of my plants, but not all... I've started fencing off sections of the garden so they don't eat the fall crops as well.

My flowers and veggies are mixed. Here's my list of what's left standing

Tomatoes
Peppers (all varieties)
Eggplant
Brugmansia (angel trumpets)
Datura
Salvia (4 different species)
Artichoke
Cardoon
Roses
Plectranthus
Hellebores
Passionflower
Bamboo
Castor bean

They devoured much more. Especially anything in the cabbage family, corn, squash, hostas, sedums, begonias, pansies.

I will say that their compost is a nice addition. As I learn what they will leave alone, I aspire to have a real garden instead of a giant chicken run! Obviously, they take priority over the plant life.

 

[Hollywood Chickens]

thing that have lived in my garden
mulberry
pomegranate (a few nips but nothing big)
ROSES!! they never touch the roses
rosemary
marigolds
summer squash
citrus
collards (on less they are hungry)
watermelon
Jasmine

and things that they will eat to death
okra
peppers
zucchini
blueberries
blackberries
eggplant leaves
cucumbers
dollar weed!
any sprouts and seedlings

 

[bluie]

I have just about given up. I put up plastic fencing to protect my little raised bed garden and they just go over or under it. One hen has decided she likes to lay her egg in my herb garden. Between the chickens and the raccoons, my little garden is not doing well. I have done well with green beans, beets, daikon, and cukes. As far as herbs go, the mints, of course, have done well. Tomatoes are shot, rosemary trampled, as are basils, dill, cilantro, can't get carrots big enough to withstand the critters. Oh, well, I knew that this year would be kind of a learning experience. Experience tells me that I need to completely enclose the garden area, top and sides.

 

[Hollywood Chickens]

Quote:
I know what you mean I put up a 6 foot fence around my veg. garden and they still got over it!

 

[GardeNerd]

I am a crazy gardener and I still love my chickens. After 9 months, the chickens and I have learned to coexist together. I built my veggie garden fence a little tighter between the pickets so they couldn't squeeze in there whenever they wanted to anymore. I use small pieces of chicken wire, with a hole for a plant, on the ground with new transplants. And as I replace things, the new plants I put in are deer resistant and drought tolerant plants.

If I want to keep things tidy, sometimes I use 1 to 4 portable dog exercise pens and bird netting to confine them. I also use the pens connected like fencing to keep them off the patio. The chickens do make sure I get my cardio work out--- the chickens daily scratch out the mulch from the beds and every evening I rake it back in.

My chickens have not eaten these in my backyard:
Heliotrope
Agapanthus
Lavendar
Salivias
Iris
Nandina Domestica (heavenly bamboo)
Camillias
Pittosporum
Clivia
Purple Heuchera (coral bells, but they ate my green leafed coral bells)
Lambs Ears
Sedum "Autumn Joy"
Leather leaf ferns
Osteospemum
Calla lilies
Asperagas fern
Japanese Anenome
Amarillys Belladona (naked ladies)
Lantana
Citrus

 

[SimplyForties]

I built a hoop house for the garden and covered it in row cover. Keeps the chickens AND the bugs out!