hanging cabbage

[gryeyes]

I use a very long nail; the kind often used to hold gutters to fascia board. I have a shepherd's hook in the yard. There's a piece of poly-cord with a loop tied into each end. One loop is attached to the nail in a kind of slip-knot; loop the cord around the shaft of the long nail and through the looped loop so anything pulling on the nail makes it tighter. Whoops! Before you attach the poly cord to the nail, push the nail into the core of the head of cabbage. Turn it over and use the head of cabbage as a battering ram with the nail head pressed aginst something solid. Pound it deep into the cabbage. Then slip the loop slip-knot over the head of the nail. I have the cord set to hold the cabbage above the chickens' heads by about four inches or so, so they have to jump to pull off a beakful.

 

[Nutcase]

Wow this sounds good. I will have to try it out. My weekends are always spent thinking of chicken coop improvements! Right now I use a wire basket secured on a metal frame. I put the vegies on there and the hens jump up and peck it down:

 

[Kathymary]

I was wondering how to design something that would hold the cabbage. I don't think we ever took this solution for winter boredom seriously. My husband had used a folger's coffee container and some wire.. but it would fall out. I don't like the rope idea I saw on you tube. That could go wrong in so many ways, it is scary. I wish I could visit a hardware store and just walk around until i saw something that struck my fancy.
Winter is coming. We are going to hit 21 degrees Friday. Too early ... 2020 the year that keeps giving me grief!

 

[RebelEgger]

I think you can get one of those "eye-hooks" that you can screw into the "stem part of the cabbage. Then tie a chord onto that loop and hang from a rafter in your coop or run.

This is a great idea! And here I was going to steal my husbands drill to put a hole all the way through it to run the string through. Your way is much easier! Lol

 

[Kathymary]

This is a great idea! And here I was going to steal my husbands drill to put a hole all the way through it to run the string through. Your way is much easier! Lol

I was looking at Walmart this morning.. they have pretty much what i imagined.. a skewer with a wing nut at the end to secure the cabbage. It is about 13 dollars... which seems high. The other thing I was researching was that danger of a hen catching her wing and damaging it. I am very emotional about my ladies and they are more pets than chickens. ... I thought about using a kind of metal/plastic covered clothes line that my husband used for just about everything (which was really nice because I didn't have to sacrifice any more clothes hangers to his inventive solutions!)
There is no reason Not to try this idea first and if it isn't satisfactory, I go the expensive route!

 

[AcorkTX]

I hope this is the correct forum for this question. I've heard you can hang a head of cabbage in the coop to entertain the chickens. We'll be out of town for one day and our son's dog will be in the backyard where the chickens normally roam. I would like to hang a couple of heads of cabbage to entertain the girls since they will be in the coop while we're gone so we're not worried that the dog will kill any of the chickens. I'm not sure how the best method for hanging the cabbage would be, any ideas? TIA!

We use cabbage to make a wrap around veggie scraps and seeds then place the wrap into a basket made of 1" hardware (welded) mesh. As they peck the cabbage, they get treats and it is a BLAST to watch.