Topic of the Week - Gardening with Chickens

[Teila]

Howdy everyone

Another good Topic of The Week .. these ToW’s are great and so very educational.

I would like to answer the second question first as my answer will be short.

What plants do chickens not eat?
Those they can not reach or get to

Seriously now .....................

How do you chicken proof your garden:

I have opted for mostly potted plants in the garden for a couple of reasons. 1. Water conservation in the Australian climate and 2. Not so easy for the little bantam girls to dig out the plants. I am more of a green person as opposed to flowers so tend to sway more towards large leaves and grasses:




They have their own garden beds and sweeping of the paths is a daily exercise

When I let them out every morning I use a garden hoe or a spade, depending on how deep I want to go, to turn over their garden beds so that they are loosened up and in the girls mind, an exciting new place to scratch

That is a towel rail which I cut down and buried and they love it as a day time roost. The grasses I planted in that garden bed, which is one of theirs, have actually survived.



My very tiny vegetable garden is hidden around the side of the house and also raised, just in case they do find it

Composting with chickens?

I also use the deep litter method in the run.

With our climate the coop has a slatted timber floor and each morning I simply dust pan and brush the overnight poops, and toss them in the compost bin. I then give the under roost area a quick wipe over and nice and clean for another day.

 

[DrDean]

I put an electric fence wire about 6 inches off the ground around the outside of the fence around the garden. It works very well at keeping them out. It's not particularly powerful. I touch it often to verify that it is working. It keeps other animals out too.

 

[Fallenone05]

Howdy everyone

Another good Topic of The Week .. these ToW’s are great and so very educational.

I would like to answer the second question first as my answer will be short.

What plants do chickens not eat?
Those they can not reach or get to

Seriously now .....................

How do you chicken proof your garden:

I have opted for mostly potted plants in the garden for a couple of reasons. 1. Water conservation in the Australian climate and 2. Not so easy for the little bantam girls to dig out the plants. I am more of a green person as opposed to flowers so tend to sway more towards large leaves and grasses:




They have their own garden beds and sweeping of the paths is a daily exercise

When I let them out every morning I use a garden hoe or a spade, depending on how deep I want to go, to turn over their garden beds so that they are loosened up and in the girls mind, an exciting new place to scratch

That is a towel rail which I cut down and buried and they love it as a day time roost. The grasses I planted in that garden bed, which is one of theirs, have actually survived.



My very tiny vegetable garden is hidden around the side of the house and also raised, just in case they do find it

Composting with chickens?

I also use the deep litter method in the run.

With our climate the coop has a slatted timber floor and each morning I simply dust pan and brush the overnight poops, and toss them in the compost bin. I then give the under roost area a quick wipe over and nice and clean for another day.

Your green space is absolutely beautiful! I love their little towel rack roost and the bridge you've built.

 

[Teila]

Your green space is absolutely beautiful! I love their little towel rack roost and the bridge you've built.

Thank You!

Before chickens I used to spend hours making the inside of the house look good. Now, with the chickens, the house gets a quick once over so it looks OK and outside I go to spend time with the gals and potter in the garden. So the garden now gets more attention than the house

I can not take all the credit for the garden; our climate definitely helps. The gals like the bridge also, they like to perch on the rails and watch the fish in the ponds.

 

[dunnmom]

Our chickens don't free range anymore, but they get plenty of green stuff, especially since we're at the close of our growing season. This is our first year with chickens. When they did free range, they didn't bother the garden too much. They seemed to prefer mowing the lawn, chasing bugs, and eating weeds as opposed to getting at the vegetables, although they did dig up some peony bulbs. They didn't eat them, though. We will use their spent bedding to mulch the gardens for the winter, but we've only used it as fertilizer a few times so far. I'm contemplating attempting trading some eggs with my neighbor for goat manure next year, because supposedly it doesn't need to be composted prior to application.

 

[1FlewOver]

I only had one chicken and I fed her in the garden to encourage her to make it her hang out. She was no problem although my plants were well established. She scratched a bit between plants but didn't dig any up.

She couldn't reach the tomatoes but she loved them. I had a cherry tomato plant that was loaded so I gave her a few every day. I don't even know if she knew she was a chicken. I think she thought she was a cat...a lap kitty! Spoiled rotten.

 

[Bogtown Chick]

I did a double take on the home page! The carousel photo looked familiar!

Lots of good, or I should say excellent gardeners with whom I've become recently acquainted with here on BYC on a similar thread and topics.

Gardening with chickens is a study in population pressure (lots of birds small area or few birds large area), chicken behaviors & habits (dusting pits, shade seeking, grazing), geographical planting strategies (tender plants right by the pop door-- not smart). Woody stemmed plants do well. Food gardens need fences until they are harvested and then your feathered friends can help with 'cleanup' in the fall when it's done. Bird netting around tomato cages if you do pots on the deck, bent willow cages, cloches, pea trellis whatever it takes to divert unwanted chicken feet or grazing. You will most likely learn by trial and error. Dependent on your birds, set up, garden type, equipment or fencing supply available.

I compost a little bit with kitchen scraps, poop collected goes in the empty feed bags then transferred to the garden top soil in late fall for slow break down through the winter and spring melt and warm up. I can't do DL or I wouldn't be able to open my coop door. And plus bacteria and mold don't live in -20F for 5 months out of the year. I'd have to heat my flooring with heat plates. Not gonna do it. Plus I'm sort of a clean coop, no poop on my chicken feet if I can help it kind of gal.

I think chickens will taste test everything. But they seem to know which plants are most palatable and which are best left alone. You will learn to fence off the 'tasty ones' and know which ones will stand without any bother or fence needed. Because I have a passion for keeping my birds among my plantings as much as possible I've started a thread on landscaping plantings in particular that are not only ornamental, but also beneficial to my birds. For health and for predator protection mostly in mind. https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/1136177/landscaping-and-plantings-for-a-free-range-flock Come take a look if interested.

 

[luvmychicks2016]

This is such a nice idea. I've been want to do it with my 7 chicks. But my challenge is: how do I get the chicks inside the
cage without grabbing each one of them? Do you have to grab them one by one each time when you move it or do you have a trick? Thanks!

 

[luvmychicks2016]

I've done the opposite of SueT, instead of enclosing my plants I have enclosed my chickens! I made this portable chicken pen not only to keep my chickens safe while grazing (I live on 19 acres of wooded river bottom; you can imagine my predator load!) and so I can put them to work exactly where I need them. In addition to eating bugs they eat weed seeds, scratch up the weeds by the roots, and deposit their wonderful fertilizer in my soil. Yesterday I put them in an area of the garden I let get away from me (my garden in 50 x 60, so pretty hard to keep up with in regards to weeds), their pen is 4' wide x 8' long and the partially dead weeds they were working were at least a foot tall. I moved them 40 minutes later and what was left I could easily rake up and haul off. Underneath all those weeds were three onions bulbs I guess I forgot to pull that were turning green and starting to come up again. The girls didn't touch them.



This is them in the tractor heading out to the garden.

 

[lazy gardener]

This is such a nice idea. I've been want to do it with my 7 chicks. But my challenge is: how do I get the chicks inside the
cage without grabbing each one of them? Do you have to grab them one by one each time when you move it or do you have a trick? Thanks!

Not my caged birds, but I'll let you in on a little secret. Chickens will do just about anything for a bit of scratch, especially if it's not an every day thing. I trained baby chicks to a cat carrier, and have trained adults and babies to a tractor simply by opening the door and tossing in some scratch after calling them. Babies are easily herded into a cat carrier. You then transport them to where ever you want them to be, open the carrier, and they can explore to their heart's content. I line the carrier with a nice nest of hay, and they learn that it is a safe comfy shelter.