So will chickens eat eveything in my garden?

[beachyhead]

I have 6 chicks, they free range from 9 am until about 2pm at the moment. However, I am starting planting up my garden for the spring and I am worried that they will eat everything. This is my first year as a proper chicken keeper and a proper gardener. I'm thinking about fencing them off for the summer. We have enough room. Do I need to?

low level young plants are my lots favourite snack

i plant tomatoes just so they can run across the garden and ransack them. they only ever pick the ripe ones and enjoy jumping up to get at the best ones. it is very funny.

some strategies i use - put plastic bottles upside down over young plants, use railway sleepers (£9 on ebay) to raise borders, use very tall pots (they may or may not work out how to jump up on them), plant things just for them in the hope they stay occupied elsewhere

i am a softie and cant bear them fenced off during the day time so let them wreck garden wander around

i also encourage them to explore patio area and garage as nothing they can destroy there. they particularly love rummaging in the garage and nothing they can destroy in there!

some breeds are less likely to wreck garden than others. what hens do you have?

The ones with feathery feet don't do as much damage

My back garden has been wrecked and they break into the vegetable area and eat everything there too. I let them into the front garden each Sunday, so that's surviving as it's only once a week.

You have to put small fences made out of chicken wire to cordon things off if you want them to survive.

Also, buy some cheap vegetables for them to peck at. Mine like kale and spring greens.

Sprinkle some corn around for them to pick up too.

I've got four hybrids and two pekins...We've got quite a lot of space, so I could make them a pretty big run for the spring and summer and then they can free range when they can do less damage.
They do get all the raw veg leftovers and corn and once the veg garden gets gunning, I'm sure there will be extra stuff I can give them.
Also not sure about free ranging in the summer with the combo of chicken poo and 3 kids.....

My kids have learnt to dodge the chicken poo

My pekins don't really scratch, so my lawn is gorgeous (and well fertilised). However, random scoffage is the worst offense. They eat pretty much everything, including the roses. Instead of fencing the hens in, I have fenced off the main border in the hope that if things get a chance to get some height, they will remain unmolested. I'm not going to unfence the border until May. Things chickens don't eat: structural plants, rosemary, ornamental grasses, alliums of all varieties. Bedding plants are just chicken food

I had a nice thyme plant and one of my hens used to sit on it to stop the others getting to it. She'd get off, have a little nibble, then hop back on

MIne dustbath under the rosemary bush. DH says they're self seasoning

Yes they will.

I only have 3 now and the brown hen gets through the fence when she can, takes the white hen with her and then they stand waiting for the cockerel to work out where they have gone. He is a bit thick but is useful as he has massive feet and digs like mad.

It looks like a bulldozer has been in the flower bed. They eat everything succulent too.

Mind you, if you have a weed patch you want clearing or a veg patch digging over they are brilliant.

They will scoff the lot, DH and I made a run last spring but were away for a month in the summer, when we got back the weeds in the run (totally enclosed top and bottom) were about 4ft high. DH said shall we trim it, I said nope and within a week it was bare earth! We put some straw in there when it gets soggy and leaves in the autumn and they love it, 4 eggs a day since August (from 4 ladies who all have boys names)

I should say that we got the ladies when we got back in the summer.