is there such a thing as chicken proof plants?

[lilchick]

Evergreens work well and they cannot eat them. The dwarf fruit trees and crab apple trees work and taller shrubs like lilacs and willows grow well in my pens. They only eat what they can reach and even jump up in air to pick off lower leaves. Once the plants get established they leave them alone.
I do let mine free range some and when confined I give them fresh grass clippings and any weeds that I clean up around yard!

 

[95yj]

how many chickens do you have, and bantam or standard?

this is my run, and its been this green for a while now, the plants are actually growing. I only have 5 bantam oeg's in there, and only 2-3 are out at one time, but still, it is possible to keep plants with chickens, standards, probably not.

 

[tasymo]

Lemon Balm! My Girls won't touch it and there are several plants in their run. They also leave the sunflowers alone that were about a foot tall when the run was built around them.

 

[columbiacritter]

Ok, just read a GREAT way to keep some green in the run. The author has several 4x8 frames built out of 2x4s covered on one side with hardware cloth. She rakes up a patch of ground in the run plants it with grass and grain seeds then covers it with the frame. As the greens grow up the chickens eat what comes up through the wire but can't get to the roots to wrip it out completely.

With several frames shes able to move them periodiaclly giving the birds occasional full access to the greenery to dig into it for bugs and all the good bits.

One thing to be sure to do is to make sure there's cross pieces in the frames every 2 ft or the weight of the birds walking on it sags the wire to ground level. You can make the frames any size that works i your run.

Even though my birds get a lot fo free range time during most of the year I'm thinking of doing this for my runs for the winter when they rarely get out.

 

[Chicken Chat]

I have wintercreeper that covers half of my chicken yard. Here is a pic of the area.

The front part was all grass before the chickens, now dirt but no suprise. The rest of their area was already covered on the sides and back with the overgrown wintercreeper. They don't eat it but they hang out in it all day looking for bugs, etc. Never had any foliage or trees die in their yard, been keeping chickens in that area for over 10 years and I have 40 bantams, but the fenced yard is pretty big. (Don't worry, that is just one of the coops on the property, I don't have all 40 crammed into just that one

) I have grape vines that grow on two sides along the fence that do very well, they strip all the foliage they can reach which the grapes like anyway, and my roses that are in there do well. I think it really depends on how much space and how many chickens you have.

 

[ChickenChik]

Yep...dead plants

 

[GardeNerd]

I have a list of chicken resistant plants that I have been working on. My chickens are generally out in the backyard from dawn to dusk. I don't keep my hens confined to a run very much, so my list might be completely useless if you are trying to keep plants a run.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/web/viewblog.php?id=20741-plants-chickens-dont-eat

I have a similar list on my blog with lots of garden photos that might have some more additions since I made this BYC one last year. In general, plants in the salvia (mint) family are left alone by my chickens. I use some of the methods mentioned by others on this thread as well, like fencing off tender plants until established, wire mess on the ground around root zones to keep them from digging out newly planted plants, permanent fencing on the vegetable garden.

I agree, that the load of chickens has a lot to do with the amount of impact they have on a yard. I have 3 chickens in a backyard space of about 2000 square feet. I had 6 last summer, but between too many chickens and the drought, the lawn suffered. As soon as I downsized, the lawn and yard bounced back. 3 LF hens seems to be just about right for the space. Other than a few holes for dust bathing, my yard is nice. Also, what plants my hens don't like, might be different from someonelse's. When I buy a new plant, I only get one, and then leave it in the chickens' yard for a few days. I wait to see if they like it or not before bothering to plant it and buying a few more. Deer resistant plant lists is what got me started on my list; I noticed there were lots of duplicates to what my hens were ignoring at my house or my neighbors'.

*Now, if there is nothing else green for your chickens to eat in their yard, they will mow just about anything down, and might even eat the poisonous plants they would otherwise avoided.

 

[seedcorn]

horse radish, provides shade, they don't eat it, it's tough.

 

[missychicky]

thanks guys, this was really helpful. I'll try it all!