Mary Fisher wrote:

"Kelrosie" wrote in message
...
I noticed a post about plants that are harmful to Hen's, but I cannot find
it now.

Hardly any is the answer. Hens are far too sensible to eat anything much that
harms them.
Google newsgroups is your friend - your can get any Usenet thread in their
archives.

The dangers will ALL be to the vegetables. And some flowers if there are any.

Ours never do much harm to any flowers fruit or veg. They do scatter bark mulch
all over the place and are very funny under blackcurrent and jostaberry bushes
jumping up to pinch the fruit. We had one that could even convincingly fly
(about 8' straight up from a standing start) - the others all fly like bricks.

Our hens had the run of the garden when we first had them. We quickly
learned that there were many annual flowers and some perennials which they
loved. They can't do much harm to bushy things. Nothing they're prepared to
eat is bad for them. We learned not to grow those things which they ruined -

You must have been unlucky then. Ours have the run of th egarden and never been
much into digging. But then the soil here is heavy clay. They scrat around quite
happily under the bushes.

So poultry are ruinous to pretty gardens. But they give a lot of pleasure,
their characters are all different, it's great fun just to watch them. They
clear all sorts of pests (including snails and some slugs) and gently
fertilise the ground. I know their deposits are very strong but they don't
do it all in the same place and have raised the fertility of our garden -

And they enjoy eating up all the various kitchen scraps.

which is why we decided to have a go at vegetables again! The litter from
their coop is wonderful in the compost bin - but an open compost heap will
be demolished in very short order. Then there are the eggs ..

Fresh eggs are gorgeous. Ours are pampered and kept more like pets.
Beware of the critters that eat poultry though - they fit through amazingly
small gaps.
(much much more of a risk to them than toxic plants)

... and chicks if there's a cockerel. I hope your brother is prepared for
other issues ...

He'll probably also get more wild birds because hens are messy eaters and
scatter grain. They're messy anyway.

I wouldn't be without ours. We go away for many weekends and they go with
us. Well, we don't have a dog.

We have well trained neighbours who feed them for a small return in eggs and
duty free...
Keeping poultry is much more popular in Belgium - even in central Brussels!

Regards,
Martin Brown