Chickens in gardens

by Pam
(Port Charlotte, FL)

Is it safe to let chickens in vegetable gardens while vegetables are growing?

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Pam, if you want to feed the chickens rather than yourselves then let your chickens into your vegetable garden!

Chickens are not like ducks. Ducks in a vegetable garden are fairly well-behaved. They will have a go at your salads but in the main they will dine on slugs and snails too and you will have a snail-free garden.

Chickens however are destroyers. They love to scratch by nature and so when they get into your seedlings, even if they don't eat them, they will scratch the hell out of them leaving them upturned and rootless.

Chickens are fine in vegetable gardens once the harvest has come to an end, or nearing the end. Then they are very useful in cleaning up any worms or bugs that may still be around. In turn, they will also spend a lot of time giving you some well-needed compost as they walk around your vegetable garden. But if you have chickens in a productive, growing garden they will eat more than you will!

The only way to successfully have chickens in a vegetable garden is if they are contained in a moveable pen within your veggie patch. Then you can place them on spent beds to clean out the bugs or on areas that you want them to fertilize.

Regards
Countryfarm Lifestyles