Good bushes to plant for chickens

[Kiff]

i am looking to take part of my garden just for the chickens to eat from, can you suggest any plants they love to eat or ones that are very good for them?

 

[ethingtonart]

i am looking to take part of my garden just for the chickens to eat from, can you suggest any plants they love to eat or ones that are very good for them?

My chickens like tomatoes! I planted 30 tomato plants for them last year, and while they trampled the vines a little bit, they were able to eat the tomatoes as they became ripe.

 

[Ariel188]

Anyone think dwarf fruit trees would be good? Would provide shade for the girls and food for us. Win win, no?

 

[HensDigMe]

If you're Chicken Run is tall enough you can put some plants on Shepherds Hooks or hanging from a sturdy crossbar. This helps with both shade and camouflage from raptors. Also, you can try a Pomegranate tree with wire around the trunk. They're hardy and chickens love the fruit.

 

[HensDigMe]

I would presume so. Just might want to put some horse fence around it for a few years.

 

[amyweiand]

Has anyone planted berry bushes in their chicken run and if so which ones?

 

[Grits&Eggs]

trampled the vines a little bit, they were able to eat the tomatoes as they became ripe

this sounds like a great idea, did you grow from seed? did you have to cover them or pot them first?

 

[B-Goock]

this sounds like a great idea, did you grow from seed? did you have to cover them or pot them first?

Tomatoes aren't a good idea. It's a member of The nightshade family and those are poisonous to chickens. If they eat many tomatoes they will stop laying or have reduced laying.

 

[B-Goock]

The fruit of the tomato plant are not toxic to chickens. Only the leaves.

Everything I've ever read says the chemical is in all of the plant & it's fruit. Potatoes have it too.

My own experience was cleaning the garden out and letting them have at the excess of tomatoes and for weeks after i noticed way fewer eggs. It wasn't due to molt or fewer hrs of light. I still give them some tomatoes but very limited amounts.

 

[ColtHandorf]

I've tried blueberry bushes (not in the chicken run) and always manage to kill them. Peach, persimmon, and plum trees have always done well once they were large enough the birds couldn't roost in them or reach the lowest leaves. Muscadine grape vines also worked beautifully when planted on shared fencing between breeding pens. I don't remember planting anything else on purpose in the breeding pens. I did leave yaupon holly in some pens and the chickens left it alone. The guineas murdered the shrubs left in their pen.