Gardening with chickens

[Deleted]

Anyone tried much gardening with chickens. Last year I threw away my extra seeds in the chicken yard, around some sticks that I placed so the chickens don't dig up to much dirt, to my surprise both a winter squash and a few okra survived and grew until I killed them as I didn't want them crosspollinating with the rest of the garden out front (wrong varieties)... I plan on protecting the base of plants with sticks (where the seeds will be planted), making a border/terraces (in the beds) out of dead tree limbs, so the dirt can't move to far down hill, then placing many leaves in the bed so the chickens have something to search through/keep the weeds out. I was wondering if you guys have had any other success around chickens like will they eat cowpeas? I'd imagine they might go for the bean, will they eat sunflower leaves once the sunflowers are at a certain size. I do plan on querentining one area from the chickens, atleast periodically, maybe to grow some rape seed for them. Also liking to grow some sunflower. Also part of this is somewhat in between trees, grass still grows well, but I was wondering if in shade, should I be growing my corn at half or so density? I may plan to plant the squash at higher density because of shade for it may theoretically travel less ground covering less surface area, therfore needing more plants. I hope they don't discover the tasty summer squash but if they do I maybe able to outsmart them if I am smart enough (pollinate/protect fruit), we will see. Another question is this chicken yard is 5000 sq ft, with 7 chickens on it for 1.5 years, should there already be enough p and k? Any guesses on N? Should I add chicken litter this first year or just use N. I know my soil is clayish and I,every heard getting to high phosphorus levels over time can be detrimental, is this true? (I know most organic farms many times have to high p) I know I could get a soil test, but idk if I want to. On a side note a nursery accidentally sent me a jujube tree, anyone have any luck eating the fruit in southeast where it humid, my friend from Thailand said they grew there, on another side note I realize how funny Thai words can sound to English, both winter squash and jujube had funny nearly English curse word sounding names.

[walt]

I have only gone with perennials, bushes, and trees in a chicken yard. A mulberry bush or tree will be loved by chickens in season.Wild perennial sunflowers, like H. maximilianii will drop lots of seeds in the fall.  Chickens will find and eat some of those.  A larger seeded species like H. salicifolius will have bigger seeds but less tptal weight.  But the higher per cent eaten might make up for it.  Chickens will eat sunflower leaves if other greens are not handy.  But if the plants aren't protected, they might get eaten up before they get very big.  If they get big, the leaves will be out of reach.

I don't know the answers to your other questions, but where I live, the soil would have enough NPK to make a crop even without chicken droppings. After chickens have been there a few years, yields would be great. But your soil will likely be different. But I'd not add anything unless I was going for top yields first year, which I wouldn't be.

Good luck.

[khoomeizhi]

Not on the chicken topic, but jujube grow well here (western nc). Best to shake fruit down right when the fruit is turning color and eat or dry quickly.

[Dewdrop]

I haven't tried gardening with chickens, but rather to take items to the chickens myself.
When the chickens were confined to the coop and chicken run away from the garden, I would occasionally pick some sunflower leaves for them. I would also take some sunflower heads, though I would have to get the first few seeds out to help them when they initially learned to help themselves to the sunflower seeds. When harvesting the sweet corn, I would save up the pesky corn earwigs in a bucket with badly damaged corn cob tips, and feed the lot to the hungry chickens.

If I remember correctly, I think you want to 'age' the chicken poop before you apply it to an active garden, to avoid 'burning' your plants with too much of a good thing of something in it.

[flowerbug]

i think both chickens and pigs can have positive and negatives to keeping them as they are both rather voracious and will eat every little bit they can get at... when used in rotation with a garden i think they can be useful to clear weeds and to stir around the top layer of dirt, but then have to be moved otherwise the garden is eaten bare again.

for myself, i stick to worms as my fertilizer generators and amend the gardens with worm castings and the worms themselves too - that is, i don't bother to separate the worms from the castings as i keep plenty enough buckets to just break down a bucket and restart the empty ones from the full ones. it is a very easy system for me. the hardest part is carrying the buckets out to the gardens for which a dolly would be very helpful when i get older.

keeping them confined and feeding them weeds and bugs is a good thing to do as then you're not destroying the diversity quite so much as they would do themselves.

[xdrix]

My grandmother has a squash wich grow in his chicken coop between two concrete plate ( crack) and they are beautiful.

[Deleted]

The chickens did well with enough of a garden that they couldn't eat it all. Annual rygrass was a favorite for them to eat seeds of, they also jump to eat cereal rye seeds. The sunflowers are as of now being eaten by a pack of gold finches, and a big pack of gold finches, ws,ll see if theirs any seeds left. The chickens also Like water oak acorns eating them whole.