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#1
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Chickens killing my garden
Just coming to the end of my first 6 months with a bunch (that is
now a total of 5!) of chickens pecking and scratching at everything in the garden. Now my garden has never been the neatest of places - it's productive and good for the kids to play with (or was until it was coated in chicken poo!), but it's always been relatively nice to look at, in a slightly haphazard way. Now it's kind of ... a few straggley plants looking sadly out of the ground where the chickens have scratched up the soil and pecked at all the new green shoots. Other than "cook the chickens" or "keep them in their run", does anyone have any advice along the lines of plants the chickens won't like so will keep away from? |
#2
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Chickens killing my garden
wrote in message ... Just coming to the end of my first 6 months with a bunch (that is now a total of 5!) of chickens pecking and scratching at everything in the garden. Now my garden has never been the neatest of places - it's productive and good for the kids to play with (or was until it was coated in chicken poo!), but it's always been relatively nice to look at, in a slightly haphazard way. Now it's kind of ... a few straggley plants looking sadly out of the ground where the chickens have scratched up the soil and pecked at all the new green shoots. Other than "cook the chickens" or "keep them in their run", does anyone have any advice along the lines of plants the chickens won't like so will keep away from? Having kept chickens, I found the only thing they wouldn't touch was nettles and a rosemary bush. mark |
#3
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Chickens killing my garden
mark wrote:
Having kept chickens, I found the only thing they wouldn't touch was nettles and a rosemary bush. Just caught them munching the fennel that they've previously ignored. *sigh* Rosemary is a possibility. If I took cuttings from my current one and planted them along the edge of the fence with next door, that may disuade them from visiting the neighbours so much. |
#4
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Chickens killing my garden
On Sat, 17 Oct 2009 12:52:07 +0000, vicky wrote:
Just coming to the end of my first 6 months with a bunch (that is now a total of 5!) of chickens pecking and scratching at everything in the garden. Electric fence to keep them in: worked for me. Keeps foxes out, too. Mind you, it didn't stop a badger getting in and killing half of them! Replacing with ducks works for others. |
#5
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Chickens killing my garden
Anne Welsh Jackson wrote:
Rosemary is a possibility. If I took cuttings from my current one and planted them along the edge of the fence with next door, that may disuade them from visiting the neighbours so much. I don't think it would stop them "visiting" - they just wouldn't stop for a snack on the way out, or again, on the way back in... But if I used it to block the gap they (well, only one of them, actually) seem to be getting through, they won't nibble their way through! Oh yes, I got dragged into the garden today to look at the thing Nick had found in the garden ... he discovered the big chicken hiding between the run and the hedge whilst he was trimming the hedge, shooed her out of the way and discovered a stash of 12 eggs! (5 from her, 7 from Little Chicken) So I guess the 10 day spell when they weren't laying may now be explained. The scary thing was, when he shooed her off (I think he picked her up and plonked her down) on the lawn and ... out popped another egg! |
#6
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Chickens killing my garden
wrote in message ... mark wrote: Having kept chickens, I found the only thing they wouldn't touch was nettles and a rosemary bush. Just caught them munching the fennel that they've previously ignored. *sigh* Rosemary is a possibility. If I took cuttings from my current one and planted them along the edge of the fence with next door, that may disuade them from visiting the neighbours so much. You'd probably get away with just a 1m high chicken wire fence. Although chickens can jump a lot higher than this, they always jump up on to something rigid first then jump down. So a 1m chicken wire fence would be better than a 6 foot panel fence for keeping them in. Also the bigger the bird the less likely they are to attempt anything athletic! mark |
#7
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Chickens killing my garden
On Oct 17, 2:52*pm, wrote:
Just coming to the end of my first 6 months with a bunch (that is now a total of 5!) of chickens pecking and scratching at everything in the garden. Now my garden has never been the neatest of places - it's productive and good for the kids to play with (or was until it was coated in chicken poo!), but it's always been relatively nice to look at, in a slightly haphazard way. *Now it's kind of ... a few straggley plants looking sadly out of the ground where the chickens have scratched up the soil and pecked at all the new green shoots. Other than "cook the chickens" or "keep them in their run", does anyone have any advice along the lines of plants the chickens won't like so will keep away from? OK, this might seem a bit, err, out there, ( and TBH, I'm not really being serious) but I was thinking along the lines of how farmers use electric fences to control cattle grazing and came up with the idea of two large plastic sheets. You lay them out, so that they can't blow away (but one still relatively folded up) and each day fold back, say, a metre or two of the spread out sheet, whilst unfolding the other to close off the space from the previous day. This way, every morning, as you fold back one sheet all the critters that that being hiding on the surface, just under the plastic, would be come fast-food, sort to speak. |
#8
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Chickens killing my garden
mark wrote:
You'd probably get away with just a 1m high chicken wire fence. Although chickens can jump a lot higher than this, they always jump up on to something rigid first then jump down. So a 1m chicken wire fence would be better than a 6 foot panel fence for keeping them in. Also the bigger the bird the less likely they are to attempt anything athletic! Damned thing got into next door /again/ yesterday, and made a right mess of her garden. :- She's going to have to stay locked in (Chickeny, not the neighbour!) until we can figure out what to do |
#9
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I have fenced off a little area (approx 15820ft) for my 3 chicks. It is mainly stone chips with some mucky patches. I gave up on letting them into the garden.
The fence I have used is only 600mm x 2 inch mesh and they haven't jumped out as yet! One of them actually roosts in the doorway overnight rather than on the perch inside the coop! Quote:
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#10
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Chickens killing my garden
On Sun, 18 Oct 2009 22:21:36 +0000, vicky wrote:
mark wrote: You'd probably get away with just a 1m high chicken wire fence. Although chickens can jump a lot higher than this, they always jump up on to something rigid first then jump down. So a 1m chicken wire fence would be better than a 6 foot panel fence for keeping them in. Also the bigger the bird the less likely they are to attempt anything athletic! Damned thing got into next door /again/ yesterday, and made a right mess of her garden. :- She's going to have to stay locked in (Chickeny, not the neighbour!) until we can figure out what to do Where is this? If it's a semi in a suburban location somewhere in the UK I thought that it was verboten to keep chickens - the council doesn't allow it here sadly. |
#11
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Chickens killing my garden
David wrote:
Where is this? If it's a semi in a suburban location somewhere in the UK I thought that it was verboten to keep chickens - the council doesn't allow it here sadly. It's actually a terrace in a suburban-ish location. Never even considered if the council would complain, tbh. But we're not the only people around the area with chickens, so either they're happy to turn a blind eye (unless our neighbours decide to complain, perhaps - but they're more likely to complain direct to us than to make it official) or it doesn't apply here. They have just given permission to allow chickens + rabbits on allotments in the area, too, after a bit of hassle. Afaik, no-one is doing that yet. Hmm. I may have to go browse our council website and see if I can find out. |
#12
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Chickens killing my garden
Janet Baraclough wrote:
Now we're heading into winter, when plant growth stops but chicken scratching and pecking intensifies (because they need more calories in cold weather). So by spring, your garden is likely to be a mudbath, with no plant growth within chicken reach. In a small area, chicken poo gradually acidifies the soil to a level which along with the scratching, reduces the population of worms and other soil-living creatures. Hmm. Hadn't thought of the poo being a problem. We've always looked at it as a natural fertiliser. Actually, a lot of it gets thrown onto the compost. You will then find, that the lack of green material and live food in their diet, changes the colour of the egg yolks and reduces the free-range taste quality you enjoyed this past summer. I have to be perfectly honest, eggs just taste like eggs to me, I'm very unappreciative of this "ooh, it was lovely and fresh" attitude everyone else seems to have. (As I think I said, they're my partner's chickens not mine, although I'm kind of getting fond of them in a 'pet' kind of way) will peck each other until they are bald and bleeding). and fresh plant material to maintain egg quality (try a grocer, for their veg waste) in addition to chicken feed and grain. Yeah, I was doing that for a while, but our local grocer's closed after a 6 month or so trial opening. Although when I come back from work I do pass a few "any bowl for a pound" market stalls which have quite bad fruit that I may start buying for them. Finally, I would say that "chicken damage" and egg production are both closely related to the breed, size and number of hens kept. 2 or 3 birds of a commercial laying hybrid, will vastly out-lay a dozen little bantams, or, 6 heavy traditional meat breeds. So you may be able to redress the problem to some extent by choice of breed and flock size. I don't know what we currently have, other than there are 5 of them, and 2 are bantams and 2 are still 'babies', with 1 bantam and 1 big one both laying slightly less than 1 a day each atm. The big one is brown and looks quite 'standard chicken', and the bantams are small and white with black markings. The other two are much prettier, but again i can't recall what they are. |
#13
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In terms of feeding, my 3 get kitchen scraps. They love raw spinach, pomegranate and carrot gratings. They will eat apple if it's finely chopped. They do turn their noses up at quite a lot though!
Their pen area is unroofed and mainly stone chippings with some mud and grass. There is a large space under their coop where they settle if it's raining. And damned if I can't get them to lay their eggs in the egg box! They are always inside the coop in a really hard spot to reach., Must get a fake egg or three and start to teach them where to put them! They were starting to slow down their egg-laying up until 2 weeks ago when I installed a timed light in their coop. I was getting 2 eggs a day from the 3, now I seem to be getting 3 eggs 6 days a week and two one day a week. They are great wee layers and don't demand much once you have the basics sorted. |
#14
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Chickens killing my garden
glasgowdan wrote:
In terms of feeding, my 3 get kitchen scraps. They love raw spinach, pomegranate and carrot gratings. They will eat apple if it's finely chopped. They do turn their noses up at quite a lot though! Ours love cold rice, particularly partial to vegetarian risotto. |
#15
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Chickens killing my garden
"glasgowdan" wrote in message ... In terms of feeding, my 3 get kitchen scraps. They love raw spinach, pomegranate and carrot gratings. They will eat apple if it's finely chopped. They do turn their noses up at quite a lot though! I hope this is addition to their correct diet of layers pellets and not instead of! Their pen area is unroofed and mainly stone chippings with some mud and grass. Mud is not good. There is a large space under their coop where they settle if it's raining. And damned if I can't get them to lay their eggs in the egg box! They are always inside the coop in a really hard spot to reach., Must get a fake egg or three and start to teach them where to put them! They were starting to slow down their egg-laying up until 2 weeks ago when I installed a timed light in their coop. I was getting 2 eggs a day from the 3, now I seem to be getting 3 eggs 6 days a week and two one day a week. They are great wee layers and don't demand much once you have the basics sorted. You don't sound like you have the basics sorted to me, tbh. If I understand you right, you feed them on kitchen scraps, let them out on mud and they do not like their nest box. Must try harder. |
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