Thistles & Nettles?

[chicken-keeper]

Thistles & Nettles? is there any spray i can use to remove them whilst my hens still stay in the run as they are overgrowing now? If not how else can i remove them? I cut them down but the have grown back twice as bad

 

[farmin'chick]

If your thistle is like our thistle, once cut down, the plant will STILL mature seed heads and reseed unless it is burned. Ah...My goats like thistle tops and nettles, and my donkey did, too....

 

[patandchickens]

You have to pull them up, taking as much root as possible with them (do this after a rain when the soil is nice and soft), and KEEP DOING IT as soon as the new ones grow a coupla inches tall. (Actually, my chickens *like* newly sprouting thistles, we don't have nettles on this property so I dunno about them -- they won't eat the big mature ones but new sprouts are a hot commodity)

If you keep at it, and never let them get very tall, you will eventually exhaust the roots and no more will come back.

Good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[Promiselandfarm]

On one of the sister sites they had a link for a lady who makes an infusion of the nettles and says it is like an energy boost drink that last all day....

 

[Big Chicken Little]

This works for any of the "big" weeds including ink berry. Cut the weed down to about 2' high now inject full strength round up with a syringe and needle right into the "stump" 10cc ought to do it. I have used this method and the weed is gone forever. If the chickens have access to that area cover it with plywood or something tough that they can not mess with.