Hello to all: My chickens are now 8 weeks and 13 weeks old. I kept them in their house for 2 full days, then also on their front porch for a week and added the wire covered pen for about 2 weeks. I am considering letting them into our fairly large garden which is fenced in. I have two big GSD who allow neighbor's guineas to freely run the yard without a problem but seem a little too curious where our chickens are concerned and I want to do this in stages. I would like to have the chickens spend a good bit of their day in the garden. We only have tomatoes and cucumbers and each is in a cage made of concrete reinforcing wire. We have newspaper covering the ground around the plant to stop weeds and the cage through the paper. There are lots of weeds around the perimeter of the garden and I am sure plenty to grow up in the middle of the rows so I think there is plenty to keep them busy until the plants get big.
My question: What are the chances the chickens will leave the tomato plants alone since they will not be easy to reach because of the cages. Will the newspaper entice them or not. The magic which I would love is if they scratched between the rows and ate all of the young weeds. Am I hoping for too much????? Thanks!
chickens in a garden
I have very limited experience with this--but I am spending this weekend building pvc raised bed tractors--probably more for keeping the chickens out than in. Last year they destroyed three HUGE swiss chard plants once they found them--and it was only 4 birds. They have removed all the grass from their chicken yard (but left the Irises alone) and basically rampage through the rest of the yard every evening when I let them out. I think they will try to eat anything green--they started on the Wisteria but gave it up, same with the Pokeweed (I suspect they are toxic anyway) and destroyed at patch of comfrey (who eats comfrey?)
So the dream of having well-behaved chickens who eat weeds and pests and leave the veggies alone is long gone for me. But I may use the chicken tractor idea to keep the long grass down. I love my chickies anyway!