![]() Plants just for the chickensīushes and low-growing trees can provide shelter for chickens to escape from predators. Once the seeds sprouted they tasted the leaves a few times but have otherwise left them alone, preferring easier pickings in other parts of the yard. The chickens couldn’t scratch or peck the seeds, so the plants had a chance to germinate. Strategic plantingīloom suggested planting flower seeds in tiny crevices the chickens can’t get to, like these nasturtiums planted in the spaces between the bricks that line a chicken run. Even a sturdy plant like garlic will not take well to this treatment, but simply leaving the weeds in the bed discourages the chickens and doesn’t hurt the garlic. Once they’ve stripped out worms and bugs, they lie in the dirt and pack it down to make dust baths. ![]() When you pull out weeds, you make patches of bare dirt that draw chickens like a magnet. Yes, even weeds can help protect your plants. This method is especially important in newly planted containers, because the chickens love nothing better than to kick the loose soil out of a pot. Get serious with bricks and stonesĪn aggressive chicken can scratch smaller stones out of the way, but a ring of bricks or larger stones around the base of a plant can discourage scratching. It can be weighed down with bricks and used to protect newly-planted seeds or low-growing plants like ground covers 3. This gives you long tabs on each edge of the larger square which can be bent down so it stands up off the ground. Sturdier than chicken wire, this wire mesh can be used to protect newly planted seeds.Ĭut out a large square, and cut a small square at each corner. Need something more? Check out hardware cloth This wouldn’t phase a determined chicken, but because her chickens have so much space and so many other plants to eat, they didn’t cross the fence. Linette used a low wire fence, not even a foot high, to keep the chickens away from her strawberries. Bloom says her garden has a steampunk aesthetic in the spring because there are so many wires and contraptions to keep the chickens away from sensitive new plants. To give the chicken wire structure, use a tomato cage or a couple of stakes. Chicken wire is your friendĪ simple collar of chicken wire around a small plant will discourage chickens if they have enough to eat. If a fence around the more vulnerable plants is not practical, there are a few easy fixes. Even so, Linette keeps her vegetable garden fenced off with chicken wire during the growing season. Her lot is big enough, at four-tenths of an acre, so her chickens have plenty of space and are easily discouraged from the plants Linette wants to protect. ![]() Linette, an outlaw chicken owner in Philadelphia, introduced six chickens to her back yard last year. “If you have 30 chickens on a quarter acre lot they should not be let out,” Bloom says, “They’re going to destroy it.” She recommends that smaller urban yards host no more than three to five chickens, and bigger suburban lots no more than five to eight. “People have way too many chickens for the amount of space they have,” Bloom says. The first consideration is the number of chickens appropriate for the space. “You wouldn’t have babies and not prepare your house for them,” she says. Jessi Bloom, a landscape designer in the Seattle area and the author of the book Free-Range Chicken Gardens, says a happy coexistence is all about preparing your garden. ![]()
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