Vegetable gardens vs. chickens

[chickenfarmerwannabe]

i'm thinking of letting my chicken(s) run loose in the backyard all day, and only putting them up at night. But there'sa pretty big garden that they will get into.

Won't they eat up all the squash and everything else they can reach?

 

[Katy]

Yes, your garden will be no match for them.

 

[keljonma]

If you don't fence the chickens, you better have a good high fence on the garden.... if YOU want to harvest any of it!

 

[carwinew]

Fence your garden if you don't want to share.
We used orange construction fence from Home Depot w/tee posts and tie ties. Keeps the dogs out too and it wasn't that expensive. Should be able to salvage it for next year also.

 

[debilorrah]

Yeah, no doubt, your garden will be gone - in a few days! These birds eat my trees

 

[horsejody]

Mine like tomatoes. They're not greedy though. they only take one bite out of each tomato, and they only bother the ripe ones.

 

[vfem]

YOUR VEGGI GARDEN IS GOING DOWN! THEY WILL OVERPOWER YOU AND EAT LIKE KINGS!!!

(My mom gave up on a garden this year. The neighboring farms chickens free range and she had nothing left after last years attempt.)

 

[NorTracNY]

Well I tried to fence my garden, but used cheap netting that they find ways under. Next year I'll put up a better fence. But I haven't gotten much damage from the chickens. They seem to like the bugs more than the veggies. They ate the pumpkins a little and some cucumbers, but they don't like the skin on the watermelon or zucchini. So although they eat the left over zucchini and watermelon that I give them, they haven't hurt them in the garden. They love hanging out by the zucchini plants though. There are bugs that love hanging out on the plant that the chickens eat up.

 

[Alexis]

On a GOOD day, I get four cucumbers while my chickens get twenty. They only sampled one jalapeno, but the tomatos and zucchini were unfortunately big targets. At first, before things really started growing, it wasn't so bad because they did keep the weeds and bugs down, but now my husband threatens to shoot them from the house - so to keep the peace we just fenced the chickens into a big field until after we're done with the growing season

Next year, I'm going to do things a LITTLE different and just keep the chickens out altogether.

 

[hcammack]

My garden is fenced and they know not to go in ! so produce is safe but wild pumkins and squash sure arn't and big nasty zuchs no one wants arn't either they get all the over ripe stuff and love it my hens do eat like kings !