Oak leaves in the Chicken yard

[cmom]

My house is surrounded by oak trees. In the summer I put the coops in the shade of the oaks. I live in Florida so our oaks are different than the ones in the north. I have laurel oaks, live oaks and scrub/jack oaks. The birds love to scratch around in the leave and they are very healthy and happy. Since the oak leaves tend to be acidic, I put them around my acid loving plants such as camellias, azaleas. I use pine needles around my blueberries.

 

[Dawn419]

I've been using a mix of oak, hickory and tulip poplar leaves in our run to help combat the mud this fall (which has felt more like winter).

At first, everyone was freaked out by the huge pile, then they began investigating and they had the pile scattered all over within 10 minutes (with the help of a handful of scratch and several handfuls of chickweed that I buried in the middle of the leaves). Within a few days time, you could barely tell that I had added the leaves as "the gang" had scratched around in them so much as to break them down into smaller pieces.


Dawn

 

[luvlybirds]

I had heard that oak leaves are toxic to hens. Is that true? I use other kinds in the run and they love it. Maple and poplar too. Jean

What other kinds of leaves do you use?