Can free range chickens and cottage gardens co-exist? I'm starting to like these crazy chickens that have moved in on me...... but I have already had to cover the ground with chicken wire where I planted bulbs because of their incessant "digging". I just don't know if things are going to work out come springtime> Any advice?
Chickens and Gardens,,,,, it it only a dream?
Chicken Gumbo?? Im really just kidding... I would love to know as well so I'll be watching for an answer.
Whenever we had newly tilled earth, the chickens had to be put up. Too many tasty worms and such fun to dust bath in. And there are some seedlings they find very tasty. In late spring, once everything was really growing, they weren't too much of a problem. I do love seeing them pecking around the garden :-)
Bluebunn, I fence, fence, fence. Then I trim the wings of the smarty-bloomered girls who still insist on attempts to breach the perimeter. I have been fencing my garden in to fence the girls out. When a bed has tender baby plantlings I put chicken wire fencing around the plants. The wire is somewhat inexpensive and very bendy for shielding the plants and can be reused for a few years.
Then there is the 'chicken tractor' idea where you build a movable chicken hotel around the field or yard. That is not really very free range, is it?
The hennys are quite good at 'turning' the compost pile. I do give my girlies the run of the place even if they disrespect the lawn swing and chairs and the patio, and chase the cat and perch on the tractor and cars....
Power to the Peeps!
Pulltab
Too bad they behave so badly in the garden. I guess they will be moving in with my sheep, but now I will have to put up a taller fence or have the wings trimmed....( I don't know how to do that)
We had a few dozen chickens about 15 years ago. When we bought our house (old farm), the previous owners left the birds! (Along with a furnished house, food in the fridge, and dirty dishes in the sink!) My husband enjoyed them immensely. At that time, I was just starting my garden, so they weren't a bother. The second year, they disappeared on the day of my mother's funeral! No blood around, no footprints either - must have been aliens.
PRIMROSE, You were fortunate, I wish mine would just disappear!
This is too funny, I just read on a website about garden friendly chickens! Check this out, you'll have to scroll down a tad to see the chicken part : ) http://northcreekfarm.org/DirectionsHours.html
Excellent article and funny too...... boy, can I relate! I will keep my little banties, they are too darn cute to give away. Maybe things WILL work out after all>
We first put up plain ol' welded wire and when the girls to laughing at that, I went down to the home box store and got a few rolls (I have over 100 ft of fence line to keep as a chickie-free zone) of the cute loopie top fence maybe 24" tall. I suppose it is designed for flower beds or something but I just looped the wire bits together with some used electric fence wire.
The white top is ...well cute..and I didn't have to deal with the time, money and work of putting up a 6' fence. The only photo was taken the day after hurricane Ike and the fence needed a lot of repair but may you get the idea?
That's a good idea! I've heard of putting a floppy top on a wire fence to deter other critters... makes sense for chickens, too, I suppose, unless they can flap right over it?
I have had chickens on and off and there is no way to let them run free without some damage. However if you want free range fowl try ducks they don't scratch like chickens and still eat bugs and such. Of course if you have a water feature ducks are a real bad idea.
My chickens run around all day. They seem to like freshly planted areas - I think its easier to
dig in. So when they start stratching around newly planted seedlings, I just put chicken wire over
the area for a week or two. They really haven't been a problem.
Tam
thank you Tam, for the positive aspects. I am really reluctant to let go of these chickens now that I have come to know them. In fact, a little banty just hatched her one and only tiny egg and now there is this darling little chickie thingy running around with her.I am thinking of laying down some jute netting to cover my most special garden areas and just working it around my plants. Half the fun of chickens is just watching them run around willy nilly acting silly. And I can't do that if they are in a coop. These are free range critters on the loose.
Love those chickens! That brown one is soo cute! What kind is it?
Do you have somewhere to keep them safe at night? We let ours run free for the first 2yrs
but then the raccoons came and we lost a lot of chickens. Now we lock them up at night
right at dark.
That brown one is a frizzled cochin. (bantum) We called her Dust Mop. I lost her last year.
She just got sick and died. Don't know what happened.
They have access to a barn, some use it, others roost in the trees. We have a redbone coonhound guarding the place, so raccoons don't come too close to the property. ,
I have posted this in here many moons ago, but not sure where.
This idea was posted in Organic Farm and Garden YEARS AGO...and I mean...maybe over 25? If I recall.... it was called a "Chicken Mote".
It was a large garden...with a chicken run that went alll the way around the outside garden. It was about 5' wide (like a dog run). The article stated it was fantastic for bug control because the hens ate all intruders that tried to pass through their run. In the winter the chickens had full run of the garden space and they ate bugs...and larva and weeds. Then...in spring...they went back to penning the chickens up in the large "mote" that ran around the outside of the garden.
It was a very clever idea if I do say so.... it's not quite as charming as having them pecking around the yard, but... very effective bug control... and a win win for fertilizer...lol
When I was a kid my folks always had a couple Banty hens pecking around the yard. They were really cute....
I LOVE that idea!
I've sectioned off a part of the yard for chickens, and I have another section which is veggie garden. I'm fencing that part off next week or so, and come fall, when I pull up the veggie bed, I will switch areas -- what was the chicken pen all summer will become the veggie garden the following spring -- and alternate every year. I SHOULD be getting chickens in the next week or so. It's my understanding that as long as you keep them away from the really tender shoots, they won't damage the garden much. (I'm still fencing them out of it!)
They will destroy any tomato they can reach..Living proof..LOL
Unfortunately for me...my husband was enslaved to their chicken coop as a kid (he's a farm boy)...and he is soooooooo not into chickens anymore that I don't push the issue. I have a good source for fresh eggs...so I'm happy with that.
I would love the "mote" idea in my own yard.
It's the RED of the tomatoes that causes that! Same as they will peck each other half to death if one of them gets a raw "red" sore. They do have a few grossly barbaric and cannibalistic habits....
This message was edited Feb 24, 2009 8:28 AM
Same reason I am not allowed Chickens ^_^
Edit to say....Posted at the same time ...
This message was edited Feb 24, 2009 11:29 AM
Well.......I have lung problems and any bird "dust/dander and or droppings" is really hard on people with lung issues. In the past I always had house birds... parrots, parakeets, canaries... etc but not anymore.
I visited a friend's parrot avery awhile back and while it was so FUN AND NEAT to walk through.. I had to use my asthma meds for a week. It was reaally bad!
She raises multiple parrot breeds...and what fun to see them in mass like that.
I have had a few house birds and know they are extra messy creatures I did not know they were a source of respiratory problems.
Always learning ^_^
Amazingly...so are pet rats (which I like and they are entertaining pets). Their dander is BAD for people with impaired lungs.
I've never smoked a cigarette in my life, but both of my parents were chain smokers of Lucky Strikes (4 pks a day between the two of them). My lungs are pathetic from second hand smoke. .
Wow more I did not know. I too think rats make excellent pets ,have had many ,to bad they have such a short life span.
All my chickens , geese, and guineas are Gone! They have tormented my flower gardens for several years costing me more than I can afford to fix or replace dug up or eaten plants. I go by my organic free range eggs at 3.00 a pop and live happily ever after now LOL
Those are my hubs sentiments exactly! I was hinting about putting in a chicken coop/yard a couple years ago and he offered me ANYTHING but that... name it...LOL He's so happy that we DON'T have chickens that he'll happily let me buy deeeeeeelish farm fresh eggs from anyone locally selling them for aaaaanyy price...lol
Years ago a friend of mine brought home the most DARLING LITTLE BABY GOAT from the weekly livestock saleyard. I had seen the amount of damage a goat on the loose can do so I warned the heck out of her (she had a very nice yard). So... she assured me her husband was going to make the most perfect harness and this little "charmer" could hang out and eat weeds under their trees when they were out in the yard. About ...... ohhhhhhhh maybe 5 months later my phone was ringing...and as I picked it up I THOUGHT I had an enraged sailor on the other end. The cussing was free flowing I can tell you that! I could make out parts of the screaming - like... that little miserable &*%$%$@@# AND*^%%^&%^^^$^&!!! &*&^%^%$# I'M GONNA KILL THAT &*%%$$##$@#@#@$$!!!! !!!!!!!! Evidently ...Mr. Cutie Pants Goat had escaped his pen (when they weren't home) and ate, chomped, stomped, danced on…and destroyed about 50% of her beloved “highly manicured” flower beds. He even ATE her "hens and chicks"....not the two legged kinds....the succulent kinds. Once I realized it was my NORMALLY SWEET SPOKEN - MILD MANNERED friend on the phone... I near busted a GUT laughing!!!!!! OHHH MYYYY...she was soooo mad....LOL
The little marauding plant muncher went to a petting zoo within the week...LOLOLOL
Our guinea hens were definitely not my DH's favorite. I swear they'd come to serenade under
the window by the TV when he was watching. They sure were loud.
Good watch dogs (Birds)''They are also good for eating ticks
We have noticed a difference tick population.
And yes they can make it hard to converse outside at times..LOL
This message was edited Feb 26, 2009 7:43 PM
Ours would come to the door and tap. We kept thinking someone was knocked
at the door. Of course they'd poop all over the deck. Personally, I prefer chickens. :-)
Tam
The dogs wont allow them on the porch.LOL
Kathy ann, My geese never bother the flower gardens, my ducks only eat the japanese beetles out of the garden,( saving my Hollyhocks), but those naughty chickens just keep dig, dig, digging away! I will have to thin down the herd, except for this mama and her little chickie.
Our geese even ate the plastic flowers..And destroyed every plant they could reach except the peony's. & ferns
Geese didn't bother anything in the ground but they ate the heck out of all my tropicals in pots, cost me more money than I even want to think about LOL
bluebunn-
finding this thread late, so pardon the intrusion...
Back in 1997 we had a horrible grasshopper invasion here. The final straw for me was an entire row of Cup and Saucer vines that I had grown from seed, which I had planted down the entire east side of my house. They'd reached the second story, and were about to bloom.
Then, one day I went out to admire them, and check for blooms, and saw one lone grasshopper had eaten the stems at the soil level on every one, and they were all dying. I was just sick.
So, went to find a solution, and at that time Martha Stewart was in the news for her chickens and chicken coop and all the colors of eggs they laid. I was quite enamored, and thought the idea charming.
I set out to buy some chickens. I got a brown frizzle, white saltan, some black-tailed japanese bantams, etc. I picked the "pretty ones". We lived in harmony for many, many years. I'll always have special memories of those birds. I named them all, and they knew their names. They would come when I called them, and loved to follow me around(especially if they saw me pick up a shovel, or if I made the "kiss sound" to signal that I found a grub worm :0)
One, in particular, was very friendly and just a doll. She would literally RUN to me, when she saw me, and would scratch my shoes, for me to pick her up. I would pick her up and carry her in my arms, just like any other pet, and, on many occasions, she would actually fall asleep in my arms. She was a saltan, and a "talker". She'd cluck and clack and tell me all about her day, and I'd clack back. She was great company in the garden :0)
Yes, they loved to scratch in the dirt, but that is what they are supposed to do, lol...I'd let them scratch around in the holes I dug, but always tried to pick out the red worms before they saw them, and just let them have the grubs and others.
Really they weren't a problem, except for seedlings. They didn't really mess with mature plants at all. I always kept a dry dirt patch for them, so they'd have their own place to bathe. It is very important for them to take dust baths, so they don't get chicken lice and mites.
I kept them free range during the day, and then at night, they huddled themselves into a rabbit-wired cage we bought for them.
The only reason we don't still have them(most lived to be 10 & 11 years old!), is because of the hawk, eagle, and raptor population. Back then, many raptors were endangered. Now, the laws protect them, and the population has increased.
We went through an emotional brief period dealing with that, and now it looks like the raptors are here to stay. :0(
I liked them how I had them...free range. Now, things are different, and we'd have to keep them locked up for their own safety, and that just kinda ruins it...
If you don't have to worry about that in your area, I would say enjoy them. They can be a lot of fun, and I'm so glad I had that experience. But, if you have raptors(like this brown eagle), they can ruin it for you.
In our area, they have carried off cats, and small dogs. We have teacup yorkies, so we have to stay ever-watchful when they go out to potty, and mostly keep them indoors.
-T
seedpicker - TX
I lived in So. Idaho for many years and many small pets were picked up and carted off by Golden eagles. The Snake River has an area that's a huge bird conservatory so...they are protected there too. We used to ride our horses down there often and we were always under the watchful eyes of the hawks, and eagles.
I also worked in vet medicine and heard heart breaking story after heart breaking story of small pets being hauled off just a few YARDS from their owners by eagles trying to feed their young down in the southern part of the state (Kuna, Meridian, So. Boise).
Here in WA state we have a very healthy population of Bald Eagles that are glorious to watch....but will also pack off anything that's the right size to dine on. Mother Nature is harsh for sure!
http://www.idahobyways.gov/assets/images/westernheritage/snakeriverbirdsofpreynationalconservationarea.jpg
This message was edited Mar 2, 2009 7:22 AM
Yes, they can be really scary. My husband ran out to try to save my brown frizzle from one, and the bird did not BUDGE. In fact, he raised his wings at my husband dracula-style. It stopped him in his tracks, lol...
We plan on roofing, and rabbit-wiring in, our gardenroom, so that the yorkies have a safe place to play. I now have heard of three yorkies meeting their end, just like you said...right in front of their owners.
Losing those chickens was pretty rough on me, too. They were pets. Ah, the good old days :0)