Help with chicken-friendly gardens

[Roger-B]

Our family is new to raising chickens but we are having a great time so far. We have two buff Plymouth Rocks, two barred Plymouth Rocks and a Rhode Island Red. We are about to move them from inside our house to their new home in our refurbished back yard play house in Berkeley CA. In preparing the chicken house and building their run, we noticed that the fences needed some work and well, one thing led to another and we removed much of the plant material. We now have lovely beds with freshly turned soil that are about to recieve a load of imported worms. We need some ideas on plant materials that will not entice the chickens. We spoke with a garden designer, who does not own chickens, and she suggested that deer resistant materials might be appropriate for a chicken yard. Does anyone know of books or other resources we can explore?

 

[Windy Ridge]

I don't know of any book on that subject... however, I can attest that my chickens have not bothered my herb garden at all.

 

[ZuniBee]

We let our chickens into our garden after the summer. They ate everything except the herbs. They mowed the weeds, plants, flowers, leaves on trees that they could jump up and get....

But the large Rosemary plant was untouched.

 

[KrisRose]

My chickens don't bother my ornamental grasses and large shrubs. Also, for some reason, they don't bother my large Zinnas or Iris. My neighbors chickens are eating her Hosta's.
However, there's no accounting for taste!! Be prepared to lose something.
Also, every square inch of dirt or mulch will be used for dust bathing

!!
I have found that gardening is alot more fun with my 15 helpers pestering me for grubs and grasshoppers!

 

[schmoo]

Sounds like you need to plant an herb garden. Maybe some lavendar, rosemary, oregano, parsley, cilantro.........those are all pretty drought tolerant also.

 

[herechickchick]

My Chickens eat everything, Azaleas, Roses, Asters, Cone flowers, Irises, Violas, they even jump up and eat the low hanging branches of my Weeping pussy willow tree. The larger bushes and my full grown roses are fine, they snack on them but the have not harmed them, everything else has been annihilated. Next spring I have an idea to keep them out of things, I can't really explain it because it is in my head but when I get it done I will post photos.

Good Luck

Adam

 

[WoodlandWoman]

Hosta=Death by chicken.

 

[Roger-B]

Thankyou all for the feed back. We had been thinking of lavender and some grasses. We will investigate the herbs. I like the idea of the various scents!

 

[lindseykoehler]

That's funny...I learned about Hosta death-by-chicken the hard way! The chickens ate it like it was lettuce! (But, incidently, they didn't touch the lettuce we had planted!

).

 

[lindseykoehler]

I don't know about any books or resources, but I can speak from experience...the plants my hens haven't shown any interest in eating are: butterfly bush, bush mallow, sage, penstemon and lavender. These are all pretty large bushes. I'm in Napa...so I think these would fair well in Berkeley also. Good luck.