Gardening with chickens offers many benefits but also requires a bit of extra effort to keep both your plants and poultry happy. If you’re new to the practice or have been gardening with chickens for a while, there are several tips and solutions that can make your experience smoother. Here’s a guide to help you balance your garden and your flock.
Managing Chicken Access in the Garden
A common concern for gardeners with chickens is how to prevent the birds from destroying plants. Chickens love to scratch through garden beds, munch on leafy greens, and scatter mulch. To protect your plants, you can use lightweight cages made from wire fencing. These boxes can be placed over low-growing crops like spinach and carrots to shield them from chickens, rabbits, and deer. For crops such as carrots, stacking two cages can offer extra protection from multiple pests.
Additionally, using knee-high poultry netting or chicken wire creates simple fences around areas you want to protect. Chickens tend to scratch through mulch, which may disturb your garden’s surface, and although they usually avoid eating tomato or pepper plants, they can ruin ripening fruit. Installing a chicken fence around your vegetable garden is essential to avoid these issues.
Benefits of Healthier Homegrown Eggs
One of the main reasons for keeping chickens is to harvest nutrient-rich, homegrown eggs. Chickens that roam freely in your yard, foraging for food and getting plenty of sunlight, produce eggs that are much healthier than those from factory farms. Studies have shown that eggs from active chickens have significantly less cholesterol and saturated fat, and are richer in important nutrients like vitamin A, vitamin D, vitamin E, and omega-3 fatty acids.
When collecting eggs, remember that eggs from clean nesting boxes don’t need washing, as the shells naturally protect against contaminants. However, if an egg gets dirty, gently wash it under warm running water and let it dry at room temperature.
Managing Chicken Manure
Another concern for backyard chicken keepers is the potential health risks associated with handling manure. While it’s important to take precautions, such as wearing gloves and minimizing dust exposure when working in the coop, chicken manure can be a valuable resource in the garden. The deep litter method, where organic material like leaves or grass clippings is mixed with chicken droppings, creates rich compost that can be used to enrich garden soil. Chickens will also scratch through manure, helping to turn it into nutrient-rich, fluffy dirt.
Chickens themselves are surprisingly clean, spending a lot of time grooming and dust-bathing to stay free of parasites. Their dust baths, which they take to remove external parasites, are like their version of a spa treatment.
Chickens as Pest Control
In addition to providing eggs and manure, chickens can be excellent natural pest controllers. They have a natural instinct to hunt for insects, and they love eating slugs, small grasshoppers, and ticks. In fact, chickens are highly effective at keeping tick populations in check, reducing the risk of Lyme disease. While chickens won’t eat everything that moves (they tend to ignore millipedes, ground beetles, and even honeybees), their ability to control pests is a major advantage for gardeners.
By incorporating chickens into your garden, you can improve soil quality, enjoy healthier eggs, and keep pests under control—making them a valuable and rewarding addition to any backyard garden.