Poultry Talk Ontario (pto.ca)

I have been pouring over seed catalogues planning for spring. It got me thinking about if there are any plants I should avoid if chickens have free-rein? Also is their anything in the likes of table scraps best not given to a small flock?
Like wise is there something I should make sure I plant lots of as it is really good for them?

Cheers!
Petra

i found that raspberries, strawberries and lettuce didn't stand a chance against my chickens without a tall fence between them! i actually had to restrict free ranging away from the garden or i wouldn't get much of anything along the lines of herbs (parsley, chives) or lettuce (or spinach, or the fancy leaf lettuce type lettuces), and carrot tops.....they loved carrot tops of all things....and strawberries. and raspberries. and the flowers on my cucumbers. and they scratch and dig and managed to dig up tomato plants, and squash plants just from rooting around them. so. no chickens free ranging in my garden. as for what they like to eat....left over cooked rice/pasta/quinoa...i give them the trimmings off watermelons (or the whole watermelon if i have any just a little past it), pumpkins, squash. they LOVE the huge summer squashes and zucchinis-you know the baseball bat that you find hiding out and wonder how you missed it and it got that big! cucumbers....the only thing my girls wouldn't eat were tomatoes. oh, cooked mashed potatoes are fun to watch them eat and get everywhere, and yogurt....lol. yogurt is just plain entertaining.
my girls get a lot of the leftovers from my garden during the growing season.
i honestly haven't found anything that is bad for chickens that they don't just avoid naturally....bigger problem is they eat the stuff they like to the ground.

Thanks WLLady...I will be sure to plant a lot of extra summer squash. I read somewhere that picking mint leaves to line their nest boxes in the summer help with mites. No idea if it is true, but since mint grows everywhere, thought it might be worth a try. I plan to fence the vegetable garden and only let them in at the end of the season. But I don't mind picking for them and since we have the space a few rows for the chickens easily done, and at the end of the season I just wanted to make sure that I wouldn't be growing something that would harm them if they got to buffet the garden.

Mine LOVE tomatoes and would jump up to the tops of the plants to get them! The turkeys were bad too...
I think they’re a bit like people and eat what they’ve been taught to eat....I find new arrivals often seem perplexed when everyone else is digging into something they have never had but soon discover that it’s OK.
I also find they love dandelion leaves, clovers and alfalfa which just grow feral around here!

Brebis wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 18, 2018 11:22 am

Mine LOVE tomatoes and would jump up to the tops of the plants to get them! The turkeys were bad too...
I think they’re a bit like people and eat what they’ve been taught to eat....I find new arrivals often seem perplexed when everyone else is digging into something they have never had but soon discover that it’s OK.
I also find they love dandelion leaves, clovers and alfalfa which just grow feral around here!

@Brebis I think you are bang on. Mine won't eat things that I hear other chickens love like lettuce and grapes but they love dandelion leaves, tomatoes, oatmeal, cucumbers, melon rinds, mashed potatoes, pasta and peas...every last pea they can get their beaks on. Those are all of the things my original chickens got for treats and they've taught each new addition what the really good stuff is. Our garden is fenced but my bantams can fit through. They go straight for the peas and eat all of the low ones. If the big girls get in they will rip down the climbing peas and destroy them. They also enjoy taking one bite out of every ripe tomato they find and corn does not stand a chance against them.