what can I plant for my chickens?

[LoveMyPeeps]

I was thinking about further spoiling my flock and planting some goodies where they can get at them. What's good?

 

[redhen]

good question!..i'm interested also!..heres a bump up...

 

[shelleyd2008]

Sunflowers, definitely, though it is a bit late for them

Pretty mch anything green, they'll eat! I read somewhere on her of a person that had sunflowers planted in her run, so the seeds would fall down for the chickens. The wild birds got all mine before they were even ready!!

<edit> Mine loved getting fresh cucumbers, watermelon, squash, and tomatoes out of the garden this summer. The babies found an onion I'd missed that the dog dug up today, and you would have thought it was christmas!

 

[Linda in San Diego]

LOL, zucchini! I had zucchini plants in the garden, I shared with the Delighful Dozen - really I dd. Then after a while I became a lazy gardener and let the chickens into the garden. They ate the zucchini and the plant down to nothing over the course of a couple of weeks! They have not found my DH's tomato plants yet, but we will see what happens there! I imagine that any lettuce, cabbage, bean or ? will be greated with much enthusiasm!
Now that the garden is gone, when we turn over the soil we find grubs - so apparently I was growin another crop the Delightful Dozen love! LOL

 

[bayouchica]

If you can section off a place in your run, Jerusalem artichokes are a great food for chickens.
They get tall like a sunflower,great for shade & protection.My chickens eat the leaves & in the winter when they die back,they eat the roots. Artichokes are a wonderful people food too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerusalem_artichoke

 

[muddler6]

Mine also eat zucchini, peas, corn right off the cob, tomatoes (they loved it when I made tomato sauce and gave them the seeds and skins, they picked through it and ate every last seed they could scratch up), I have planted grass for them (even in the winter I planted some in trays in the basement and took them out to the coop as a treat) but I have thought about grapes growing up and over the run. But then again, I pulled weeds out of the garden and put them in the run and they ate them too, so pretty much anything works for the chickens, it just depends on how much work you want to do. Every gardener has a little extra something to give to the livestock.

 

[Fowl-Language]

Eggplant...

 

[buckeye lady]

Zucchini!!! I slice a whole one lengthwise and lay both halves in their tractor and by Dusk there is no trace left. Same goes for watermelon and cantoloupe.
Sweet corn is like heaven my girls. They see an ear coming and they all start dancing.
The field behind the house was soybeans this year and they combine left us a few small piles of beans. The ladies enjoyed these-I crushed them first. (the beans not the girls

)
Grass-They love grass clippings.
The go bonkers for apple peels. I use my peeler that makes them into ribbons and the girls grab sections and run!

 

[LoveMyPeeps]

Wow, thanks for all the great replies! It sounds like when I plant MY garden in the Spring, I'll have to plant another for the chickens.

Now the flock and I have something to look forward to while getting through another Upstate NY summer.

 

[JennsPeeps]

Here's what DIDN'T grow this summer in my garden because of the chicken buffet:

Pepper plants
Broccoli
Carrots
Green beans

Now they're working on the kohlrabi leaves.