This is my first spring with both a garden and chickens. I have 2 BR hens that spend most all day with a free run of our yard. When my garden is planted, do they need to be fenced out to keep from eating the plants or will they simply help wih bugs? The garden is only about 8 x 12 in size.
Yes they will need to be fenced out as they will enjoy your plants. I also fence mine in. I have a small portable pen 2 x 4 feet that is fine for a couple of hens for an afternoon. I put in in the isleway or over a "spent" bed and let them have at it finishing off any plants and bugs that I want gone. Because mine are gentle pets I can just carry them over and pop them and the porta pen where I want. The porta pen is light, just heavy enough a chicken can't knock it over, so they are not safe from dogs in there, but they are in a fenced yard anyhow so that does not matter.
Well this is my first year too with chickens and gardens and my take is that there is no such thing as chickens and gardens together. Either there are chickens OR there are gardens. Sigh. So I put a fence around most everything but they still fly over sometimes. Then I run out like a maniac screaming. They are now "grounded" to the pen except for just before dusk. At that time there seem to be more bugs and they don't seem to bother the plants as much. One good thing is that with chickens no one ever needs Round_Up again. Yes they can take a lawn down to nothing in just a few days, while depositing fertilizer all around. Maybe I should rent them out.
Gardens & chickens are mutually exclusive. Chickens will destroy a garden that small in a matter of hours.
