what kind of green stuff to grow out back for my ladies?

[steveg144]

So our two adoptee hens, Camilla (Leghorn) and Nigella (Austrolorps), are settled into their swank new coop. It's in our back yard, which is large (roughly 1/4 acre) and completely fenced in. We've had our lawn guy doing the backyard along with the front and side lawns, but I'm going to have him stop going back there and let the ladies have the area to themselves. So what's a good green thing to let the back lawn go to that they'd like to eat? I'd swear I saw a thread on this, but now that I need it I can't find it.

Red clover sticks in my mind, and also "rye" (by which I assume they mean ryegrass?). Any ideas? Thanks as always, you folks are great.

 

[hencrazy]

My chickens favorite greenery is swiss card. If you have a small area to plant some I would recommend it. I would not let them free range in it though - did that once and all that was left was dirt when they were done.

 

[steveg144]

We actually have a good-sized area set aside for raised beds. Swiss chard? Sounds good! We'll grab some at the farmer's market and test-drive it on them. They sure as heck love collards. And of course arugula (but then, who doesn't?

 

[woodmort]

I had a friend that grew Swiss chard for his chickens and never realize it was good for humans to eat until I told him. When I open our garden to the chickens at the end of the summer I have to cover our chard, herbs and Brussels sprouts or the birds will eat them to the ground. Chickens, as a rule, will eat anything green, usually as soon as it sprouts, so it has to be protected or it'll never amount to any size.

 

[HHandbasket]

My girls have completely destroyed my mint beds and anything that even remotely resembled a blade of grass. The sod netting from the lawn is coming up.

Last spring when we first got them, though, we had spinach beds and a bed of mixed salad greens, which my girls were crazy about. They also really, really love clover, which is good because there's a lot of it just growing in our semi-wild yet still enclosed urban backyard. ("Semi-wild" is a nice way of saying our back yard is in disarray at the moment & we need to do some serious work back there.)

 

[foxinachickenhouse]

Buckwheat!