Planting MINT in the run

[dixygirl]

This morning when I fed my duckies and chickies, I gathered bunches and bunches of weeds that the horse refuses to eat to give them. Of these were some delicious and very fragrant mint plants that grow behind my house like weeds.

Some of them came up with the entire root system so I planted those mint plants in their pen. This has a strong lovely fragrance that fills the air and will be a great help with poop odor. It also made me think of planting Red creeping thyme in there. When they step on this the air will be filled with a marvelous fragrance. The mint is the same way. When they brush up against it or chew it, the air explodes with the fresh scent of mint. There are other fragrant creeping ground covers as well with other fragrances.

Another great one would be strawberry plants

And don't forget amaranth with wonderful delicious berries.

These wonderful plants are all going in my runs to provide natural air freshening, natural food and decoration as well.

Any other favorites we might include?

 

[robbobbin]

Let us know how it goes. Hope they last long enough to become established.

 

[BirdBoy88]

Beautiful plants

i LOVE mint and strawberry plants.. just pick eat and go..

 

[dixygirl]

Quote:

That's a good one. What I did was break off the tops of all of them and gave them to them. I just left the roots and stems in the ground.

They do devour plants voraciously. I think the roots of the mint and amaranth stand a good chance against them because they are very aggressively growing plants.

 

[karanleaf]

Nice Idea dixygirl

are you planting all of this inside or some just outside of the run too? I will be interested to see how this works out. The grass that was in our run last a whole week after we put the chickens in. Now its bare ground. I believe I would have to fence some off just to give it a chance to get established. I would love to do this. I wonder, do you think chives would work as well? Or chamomile, I like the smell of it .

 

[lleighmay]

I wonder if mint would flavor the eggs?

 

[dixygirl]

Quote:
OOh those sound lovely. I will remember those too !
And that's a great idea to partition the growing area off from them inside their run until it gets established. Then let them to only a small section at a time and for a short time so they don't graze it to nothing. So i have to put some garden borders or fencing in there too.
Great ideas!

And it would be interesting indeed if we end up with mint flavored eggs !

 

[herechickchick]

I read that Dandelions are the best for chickens and people they have tones of vitamins and trace minerals.

 

[Anny]

if ther is any plant that chicken can not destroy I think Mint would be it. That stuff would take over the world if you let it.