garden help! growing food for chickens

[cheldi]

Hi all!
I'm a persistently failing gardener lol. I've tried on/off for years with minimal success, but I'm determined! We've got 3 acres and the majority of it is cleared, usable land. Seems silly not to produce more than eggs with that space! Last year we fenced in a 20' x 50' garden. (We live in the woods of Pennsylvania with very high activity of deer, racoons, rabbits, etc) I planted a few things but it was mostly left empty and filled up with weeds. This year I'm determined to grow more food!
However... I'm 85% carnivore. Meaning, I eat very little plant foods. I will still grow the basic tomatoes and peppers for cooking, and I'll do pumpkins for fall. I planted some new elderberry shrubs last year and I hope to expand those.
What would you grow specifically for feeding chickens? We have a flock of 10 hens right now and I would like to use the garden to supplement their feed.
(I'm zone 6B and because our property is a clearing in old tall woods, our direct sunlight hours are kinda short.)

 

[Debbie292d]

The number one thing we grow every year JUST for chickens, is kale.

It's very nutritious and they love it. We either pick a bunch, hold it by the stalks and they pick from it, hang it in the coop so they have to jump up to get some, or lay it in the yard with a brick on the stalks.

We put down stakes and used chicken wire around our garden. That does keep the chickens out of it and usually the rabbits too.

We too don't like to plant much and yup, most goes to weeds anyway, but corn, sunflowers, squash, pumpkins, kale, always, and sometimes radishes, carrots, and beets. The tomatoes get blight so bad here so I bought a grow light and going to try those from inside the house this year, never putting them out.

 

[cheldi]

The number one thing we grow every year JUST for chickens, is kale.

It's very nutritious and they love it. We either pick a bunch, hold it by the stalks and they pick from it, hang it in the coop so they have to jump up to get some, or lay it in the yard with a brick on the stalks.

We put down stakes and used chicken wire around our garden. That does keep the chickens out of it and usually the rabbits too.

We too don't like to plant much and yup, most goes to weeds anyway, but corn, sunflowers, squash, pumpkins, kale, always, and sometimes radishes, carrots, and beets. The tomatoes get blight so bad here so I bought a grow light and going to try those from inside the house this year, never putting them out.

thanks! i've never tried kale because i won't eat it lol but that should grow well around here. with the high predator traffic, consideration for our neighbors, and no rooster rule, our chickens are never out of their big run. we have to go with 1/2" hardware cloth and underground apron, which we did for the garden as well. a few years ago i did a raised bed and the dang voles figured out very quickly to dig in from underneath! there's almost no point in trying to grow things here if we didn't do the mesh apron

 

[Echelontheory101]

Hi all!
I'm a persistently failing gardener lol. I've tried on/off for years with minimal success, but I'm determined! We've got 3 acres and the majority of it is cleared, usable land. Seems silly not to produce more than eggs with that space! Last year we fenced in a 20' x 50' garden. (We live in the woods of Pennsylvania with very high activity of deer, racoons, rabbits, etc) I planted a few things but it was mostly left empty and filled up with weeds. This year I'm determined to grow more food!
However... I'm 85% carnivore. Meaning, I eat very little plant foods. I will still grow the basic tomatoes and peppers for cooking, and I'll do pumpkins for fall. I planted some new elderberry shrubs last year and I hope to expand those.
What would you grow specifically for feeding chickens? We have a flock of 10 hens right now and I would like to use the garden to supplement their feed.
(I'm zone 6B and because our property is a clearing in old tall woods, our direct sunlight hours are kinda short.)

Similar to Debbie I grow collards for my chickens only because I also eat some of it because it grows so fast and so much and I hate kale haha so I picked collards but any dark leafy green, kale, collards, rainbow chard, Etc. are really good for the chickens, they have a lot of the nutrients that the complete feeds are sometimes a little short on. But generally speaking they aren't super picky they'll eat pretty much whatever you decide to grow for them. Mine also just love when I rip a branch off one of my hemlock trees and throw it to them, they like eating the Evergreen needles (****not the hemlock plant**** that is poisonous and very dangerous to chickens but Eastern hemlock trees that look like pine trees are perfectly fine)

I also grow a TON of marigolds, the chickens love it, it deepens the yolk color and theyre also planted all throughout my beds for pest control abd pollinator attracting, my gardens best multitasker!

 

[Echelontheory101]

The number one thing we grow every year JUST for chickens, is kale.

It's very nutritious and they love it. We either pick a bunch, hold it by the stalks and they pick from it, hang it in the coop so they have to jump up to get some, or lay it in the yard with a brick on the stalks.

We put down stakes and used chicken wire around our garden. That does keep the chickens out of it and usually the rabbits too.

We too don't like to plant much and yup, most goes to weeds anyway, but corn, sunflowers, squash, pumpkins, kale, always, and sometimes radishes, carrots, and beets. The tomatoes get blight so bad here so I bought a grow light and going to try those from inside the house this year, never putting them out.

Have you tried those hanging upside down tomato planters before? I wonder if that would help with your blight issue, you essentially grow the tomato plant upside down from any hook that you would hang like a hanging flower basket on the porch etc. you get a lot of air flow that way and they're off the ground I wonder if that would help it all!

 

[Sally PB]

Greens are good, and usually easy/fast to grow. Some chickens also like cucumbers and zucchini. You could buy one each of those in the store and see if your chickens like them, before committing to growing them. Cut them in half, lengthwise. In the heat of summer, those can be nice cool treats, especially if they're from the fridge.

Sunflower seeds are another tasty treat, but keep them as "just a treat." They're full of fat.

 

[BlindLemonChicken]

In addition to what’s been mentioned I would plant some clover. It’s high in calcium and mine love it.