What would you put in your garden for poultry?

[BReeder!]

Adding to the above lists.....which are great by the way....

buckwheat
clover
cucumbers
And a patch of millet

My soil is awful so buckwheat, clover and millet as cover crops to help my soil and entertain the birds.

I thought about using a cover crop. Our garden is not gigantic but is large enough to plant cover over in the Fall. The trouble I have with the idea of a cover crop though is I have raked the entire garden into hilled up rows. How am I supposed to mow down the cover crop then? I'd have to decide to flatten the garden landscape or knock the rows down before cover cropping and rake them back into shape in the Spring for planting. I do enjoy laboring in the garden but that's a LOT of labor.

 

[BReeder!]

oh Chard for sure! chickens love tender chard leaves and even the stems. In the spring chickens go NUTS over chickweed, so if you can plant or find some of that they will peck loud and fast!! Seeds that sprout are good too, like wheat, cabbage, sesame seed, chia seed. Cabbage and broccoli are cruciferous veggies, so they help regulate hormones in the GUT especially estrogens (yes, estrogen is metabolized somewhat in the GUT) so these are good for laying hens.

Cilantro and parsley are other chicken favorites and they help detoxify heavy metals and impurities so really beneficial for the chickens.

Also think of a small clump of non-running bamboo. Chickens love the leaves to eat and play/hide in the branches. Bamboo has been reported to be high in nutrients for chickens and helps support their microbiome in the GUT. My chickens also love summer squashes like acorn and butternut. 'they will peck at raw squash and you can cook it for them also . !!!!!!

Acorn and butternut are winter squashes here... I hope to include them both in our variety of squash. Broccoli and cabbage both failed last year. I may give the cabbage another go if there's a spare row in the garden that needs planting.

 

[21hens-incharge]

I thought about using a cover crop. Our garden is not gigantic but is large enough to plant cover over in the Fall. The trouble I have with the idea of a cover crop though is I have raked the entire garden into hilled up rows. How am I supposed to mow down the cover crop then? I'd have to decide to flatten the garden landscape or knock the rows down before cover cropping and rake them back into shape in the Spring for planting. I do enjoy laboring in the garden but that's a LOT of labor.

Buckwheat can be planted during spring and summer in with the veggies. I would plant it among the veggies and use shears to chop it down. I wouldn't bother removing what I chopped either. I would lay it on top of the soil between the plants as a mulch.
The best things about it are that it draws polinators, is a nitrogen fixer, roots break up the soil, and it helps choke out weeds.
It is an experiment for me so we will see how it does.

 

[BReeder!]

Curious why the tomatoes are marked not for chickens? Mine go nuts for tomatoes. If they have access, they will mow down the plants too. The plants are supposedly a nightshade and poisonous but nobody told my chickens because they eat them anyway.

I was considering the plants to be poisonous. As for the fruits, I was not sure. However, I intend to keep every tomato possible for human consumption. I'm greedy with my tomatoes.

 

[Criticalicious]

If the chickens have access to the tomato plants, you won't grow anything but nubs.

 

[BReeder!]

If the chickens have access to the tomato plants, you won't grow anything but nubs.

That's a good point. To clarify, none of my birds have direct access to the garden. It's completely fenced in. The quail are in large cages, the ducks are in a fenced in pond/run, and the chickens and turkeys share a fenced in (and net covered) run. So NOBODY is getting to my garden - except the darn squirrels, rabbits and mice, but I'll save that for another thread all together.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

That's a good point. To clarify, none of my birds have direct access to the garden. It's completely fenced in. The quail are in large cages, the ducks are in a fenced in pond/run, and the chickens and turkeys share a fenced in (and net covered) run. So NOBODY is getting to my garden - except the darn squirrels, rabbits and mice, but I'll save that for another thread all together.

Consider yourself lucky if you have no deer, plundering your garden…

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

I was considering the plants to be poisonous. As for the fruits, I was not sure. However, I intend to keep every tomato possible for human consumption. I'm greedy with my tomatoes.

If my ducks get access to the tomato plants, they eat them whole: Leafs, green tomatoes, twigs, stems and roots. I used them to get rid of the tomato and pepper plants in fall after the first frost.

 

[NatJ]

- potatoes (2-3 varieties) [not for chickens]

- tomatoes (3-4 varieties) [not for chickens] I know they're fruit...

Tomatoes: the fruits will not hurt chickens. So if you get one (or a bunch) that split open or have bad spots, give those to the chickens.

Potatoes: the green plants should not be given to chickens.
Cooked potatoes (peels and insides) are fine for chickens.
I've always thrown potato peels into the "compost pile" that is the chicken pen, no problems. (Green potatoes are technically poisonous, so green peels would be technically poisonous as well, but I've never seen it happen--either the chickens eat them or they don't, and what they don't eat will either dry out on the surface or be buried in the dark underneath layers and thus not turn green.)

Almost everything people eat is safe for chickens, so be sure to give the trimmings to the chickens. They like the peels, seeds, bug-bitten parts that the people don't want. Yes, I throw in things like onion peels too, which they probably do not eat--what they do not eat, they will compost.

Possible other crops for chickens and other birds:
slugs (I've read that ducks will eat bigger ones than chickens will.)

 

[BReeder!]

Tomatoes: the fruits will not hurt chickens. So if you get one (or a bunch) that split open or have bad spots, give those to the chickens.

Potatoes: the green plants should not be given to chickens.
Cooked potatoes (peels and insides) are fine for chickens.
I've always thrown potato peels into the "compost pile" that is the chicken pen, no problems. (Green potatoes are technically poisonous, so green peels would be technically poisonous as well, but I've never seen it happen--either the chickens eat them or they don't, and what they don't eat will either dry out on the surface or be buried in the dark underneath layers and thus not turn green.)

Almost everything people eat is safe for chickens, so be sure to give the trimmings to the chickens. They like the peels, seeds, bug-bitten parts that the people don't want. Yes, I throw in things like onion peels too, which they probably do not eat--what they do not eat, they will compost.

Possible other crops for chickens and other birds:
slugs (I've read that ducks will eat bigger ones than chickens will.)

Slugs did become a problem last year for us in the garden. Mostly tiny slugs of some kind. They are voracious leaf eaters and really put a dent into our green beans and peas when the plants were young. The problem is I don't want to let any of the poultry into the garden when plants are growing, especially when there's just seedlings popping up. I learned two years ago that chickens will decimate a garden in no time when our five hens at the time ate nearly every weed that grew but also dug up nearly ever pepper seed I planted in just 1 day. I won't make that mistake again. I guess I could pick slugs that I see or even set up some DIY slug traps (chunk of potato in a bottle partially buried sideways so the opening is level with the soil surface), and throw them to the birds.