Chickens in the Garden?

[Claire Hope Fox]

Let me preface this by saying that it is almost certainly a bad idea, but I can't help but wondering... are there veggie crops or fruit crops (plants, bushes, or trees) that one can safely cultivate in the company of freeranging chickens? In my experience, chickens will scratch up anything with shallow roots, and peck at just about anything, including squash (which I've read they're supposed to leave alone... not mine, even with acres to roam around in). We are moving to a new property this fall with only one clearing in 12 acres of forest. I have no experience letting chickens freerange (or range fenced) in a forest, so my first thought was to fence in the entirety of the clearing and use half for veggie gardening / fruit cultivating, and the other half for chickens. But there isn't really enough room to fit everything that I want, which led to the thought... maybe I can grow something in with the chickens. My other thought was to alternate which half has chickens, and which half has veggies each year, and grow a cover crop over the area that had the chickens. I guess in that scenario the fruit shrubs and trees would be in a separate area. Any advice? Thanks!

[Claire Hope Fox]

Oh... one last thought... I know that ducks are great in the orchard. Can you trust them in a veggie garden? I loooove eating duck and have considered raising them for meat, if I could combine a few of them in with my gardening.

[Susan Verberg]

About ducks (and geese) what I read is that they are great when the veggies are mature and the weeds seedlings, they'll go for the young stuff, but if the veggies are young as well they'll eat anything. Weeder geese and ducks are very good in orchards to help with fruit clean up and eat grubs from the ground that become tree pests. I have khaki campbell but plan to upgrade to harlequin, the khaki's are nervous birds and even though hand raised are never comfortable near humans. Lots of eggs though, but hardly any meat. We raised our ducks with geese, and the geese taught the ducks to go back to the coop, and once they're in that habit they'll keep doing that we found. You could maybe raise some chicks with ducks to help with homing? Cheers, Susan

[IthacaNancy]

I wouldn't trust ducks or chickens. I had to enclose my garden for both. Even if they don't like eating something, they tromp all over and mash everything down.

But my chickens seem to love the woods. I haven't lost any to the woods, although I lost one when I didn't close the coop door one night. We just put up deer fence and I'm hoping it will discourage predators too.

The chickens like pawing through the mulch around the fruit trees, but they don't do them any harm. I'm sure they'd help themselves to berries though.

We have some ducks - Indian Runner and Cayuga. The Indian Runner are worth keeping just for the amusement factor - they are so goofy looking. They are good layers too, although mine won't enter the coop so I have to search for the eggs. It's nearly impossible to beat the crows to the eggs.

The chickens and ducks are busy eating much of the day - foraging, eating bugs and greens and who knows what. Their yokes are so bright orange. But you probably already know that . . .

[Sharon Tregaskis]

Hi, Claire.

We keep chix in our apple orchard and it seems to help with pest management. They LOVE getting into the flower garden, so we keep them enclosed behind a 4-foot poultry net (haven't had power to it the last six weeks) and move the net and their house about every 10 days to two weeks. There are a lot of brambles (raspberry, black raspberry, and blackberry) and they don't bother the plants much, except where they make dust baths, which seems to be based on how loose the soil is. We also have vetch planted at the base of the apples, and the chix delight in the seeds, when the time comes. The birds seem to thrive in the shade of the trees, happier than out in the glaring sunlight all day. I definitely wouldn't trust them in the area where we have veggies we plan to harvest, though we have put them on land post-harvest, for vine cleanup.

Good luck at your new place!

[Katie Quinn-Jacobs]

Only thing to add to what's been said is that my laying hens LOVE the woods, esp. in early spring. They spend more time turning up the forest floor than they do hanging in the pasture. So definitely include the woods as part (if not all) of your free range planning. But be sure to close them up at night!

Also, I put my new chicks in the orchard for the first month of life. They learn to forage there (safe from predators) and when they begin to get "too powerful" for the plantings in the orchard, I figure they're mature enough to cut it outside the protective deer fence and cast them out.

[Laura Woinoski]

Chickens' natural habitat is the woods, so they will naturally like to go there. Be sure they are used to roosting in their coop at the new place before trusting them in the woods b/c they will want to roost in the trees at night.
Maybe some deer fencing to temporarily fence them in until they are used to the place, and then use that fencing + more to fence in a part of the woods. I say this b/c we lost 2 hens to a fox this spring in the woods, they went just inside the perimeter and got gobbled up!
Not that a deer fence would stop a fox, but it might deter - also our fox lives right near where they were...you could do a hole search and figure out what you have in the area your chicks will be first?
Just some tips..good luck! :)

[Claire Hope Fox]

Thank you all for the excellent feedback! It sounds like forest foraging would be a good plan for the chickens, and that I may be able to trust them there without a fence, once their instincts have matured, as long as they are shut up safely in a predator-proof coop and run during the night. My husband would like to minimize the amount of fencing that we do, he hates the look of it, whereas I accept it as a practical measure necessary for food production!

Laura, did the fox get the chickens during the day? My experience has been that only hawks hunt during the day, and that chickens foraging in trees and brambles have better protection from hawks compared to open field. Other predators that we've encountered have all been at night, and only a threat if the chickens are not securely shut-up in a coop or roosting in trees. We do have foxes around our new place, though, and I am not familiar with their habits. Our neighbors have dogs (boisterous and inquisitive ones) and like to walk them through our land unleashed... hopefully that will change once we move in, esp if we have chickens roaming about.

It is worth mentioning that we do not own a dog ourselves, which can be enormously helpful in keeping freerange chickens safe.

[Susan Verberg]

My chickens roam in our forest fine, they prefer it over the open field when it's real sunny and warm and love to grub around in the fallen leaves looking for stiff, so I would not worry about that too much. My chickens even strip our rhubarb bare, which is supposed to be poisonous! It does seem that anything planted too close to the coop gets eaten, whatever it is, but if it is reasonably far they leave it alone. My hosta planted opposite the coop was eaten to the ground (we dubbed it the salad bar) but when replanted on the other side of our house, out of the line of sight from the coop, they leave it pretty much alone...

Hope this helps :-) Susan