herbal medicine garden for chickens

[mobius]

Guys these are my salad bars I recently put in for flock of six. Wouldn't it be AMAZING to do an herb garden this way for the chickens? Right now it is planted with clover and barley seed, and just beginning to produce enough for chickens to nibble, I mean it is all green and coming throught the holes. This way, they don't completely tear up the plants!

So easy to seed, I just scatter seed on the top and it falls through, then i sprinke it with the hose once a day. AND! I used the compost from their deep litter run as the "growing medium". Yay!

 

[mobius]

Here are pictures from two days ago. They are ON it as soon as I let them out in the morning. The barley is going great and the clover is taking its time! What would you plant in one of these? I am thinking wormwood! As well, there is wild heal-all around here too. So exciting!

 

[WVcreekfarm]

Here are pictures from two days ago. They are ON it as soon as I let them out in the morning. The barley is going great and the clover is taking its time! What would you plant in one of these? I am thinking wormwood! As well, there is wild heal-all around here too. So exciting!View attachment 940178 View attachment 940314

We're repurposing our old raised bed frames into grazing frames for the run. We'll have 2 16' long ones...can't wait to fill them up with the good stuff!

 

[mobius]

Great minds, need I say more? What are you putting in them? That is a wonderful idea to repurpose old raised frames!

PS instead of wire hardware cloth I got (because I read about it on THIS SITE) plastic hardware cloth (from amazon or the box stores). Comes in 2 and 3 foot widths. I will post a link if anyone interested. Cut with scissors and stapled onto the wood with a heavy duty stapler.

 

[WVcreekfarm]

Great minds, need I say more? What are you putting in them? That is a wonderful idea to repurpose old raised frames!

PS instead of wire hardware cloth I got (because I read about it on THIS SITE) plastic hardware cloth (from amazon or the box stores). Comes in 2 and 3 foot widths. I will post a link if anyone interested. Cut with scissors and stapled onto the wood with a heavy duty stapler.

Yeup! I also read about the plastic hardware cloth on here too... something to think about for sure.

I'm thinking about doing some wild bird seed, barley, maybe hops in a box to climb the fence(hubs does home brew, so it would be dual purpose), anything that reseeds itself-we have tons of cosmos and they are a bug magnet. Pretty much anything I 'spose lol. This will be the trial and error year and I'll go from there.

My chicks just came yesterday and I'm still redesigning my coop obsessively, but I know their run (approx 40' long and 12' wide)will butt right to our garden for easy fall cleanup ranging. And chucking treats over the fence lol

 

[mobius]

LOVE the plan! Do consider white clover. A little slow growing but perennial and reseeds. Very healthy for chickens, like an herb in itself. It nitrogen fixes the soil as well. And I did sprinkle some wild bird seed in the salad bars for no good reason.

 

[annagoodspeed]

Sorry, not good with quoting and replying I guess.
Bocking cultivars, the russian comfrey, does not self seed around, but is lower in medicinal value than the true comfrey. I have Bocking 14, very vigorous clumps, bees love the flowers. Comfrey is really hard to get rid of, any root left will regrow, so I went with the russian out of fear.

 

[annagoodspeed]

I love those boxes!

 

[WVcreekfarm]

LOVE the plan! Do consider white clover. A little slow growing but perennial and reseeds. Very healthy for chickens, like an herb in itself. It nitrogen fixes the soil as well. And I did sprinkle some wild bird seed in the salad bars for no good reason.

Thanks! It's really going to be an experiment this season. My husband loves it bc it's reignited my garden fire lol, planted things just for the girls. If I have luck with what I put in the garden, there will be some serious transplanting to their coop landscaping.

Almost our entire yard is white clover, so I've got a feeling I'll end up rigging some kind of "rotation fence" to keep the ground somewhat green. We've are planning to free range as much as possible also since I'm home all the time. They'll have about 8 acres to work on here around the house.

 

[mobius]

LOLOL 8 acres of clover. Silly me. VERY nice! Your chickens will be in tall cotton, so to speak!