Glad to meet you, Mat and Lucy. I would like to know how you let chickens scratch around your gardens without destroying all the plants. Tips, please! I would love to let chickens in my garden, but they seem to be so destructive to plants of all kinds - they totally destroyed all the established artemisia mugwort, goldenrod and even milkweed(!!) plants that they could reach. I shudder to think what havoc they could wreak in my veggie, strawberry and herb patches. I had planned to let them in those areas after harvest time, to scratch in the compost for next year. (er maybe not the strawberry patch)