I love my chickens but....

[Minamoo]

They ate all my tomatoes. Well.....not everything. Just all of the lower leaves on about 30 of them. Although one was devoured in its entirety. This is what happens when you put your sister in charge of erecting the anti-chicken barrier. I swear they do this on purpose just to see how far they can push me before I take the hatchet to them. And they keep breaking into the greenhouses. Every barrier I put in front of the greenhouses when I have to leave the doors open forms a new exciting challenge for them to surmount. Cheeky little blighters.

[VirginVegGrower]

My four found my pea shoots again so I have given up and gave them to them to finish!

[Glutton4...]

LOL - Where here's a will there's a way! Where there's an escape route, there's a Chook!

I have one, a little black Hen I hatched last year, now named Houdini. I've given up putting her back in the run, and she now goes back when she wants. Thankfully they are nowhere near the Veg garden.

[chris]

I had a similar problem, they ate all my aubergines, most of my toms, trashed my seedlings, kicked compost all over my gravel base, pooed everywhere etc.

I was fuming, espeically as my aubergine germination wasn't great. They've recovered now - but I've learnt my lesson - I now have this in my greenhouse door:

[baldrick]

rip pumpkins,gherkins&lettuce. Pray hard4the spring onions. Leghorn stew any one??

[Minamoo]

Oh they nibbled all my aubergines too. And about 2 dozen onion sets. I forgot about those. Lol! I put a pallet in front of the greenhouse to act as a barrier. Then came home to find Attila the Hen perched on top of the pallet, pulling out lettuces and onions and throwing them down to her partners in crime. Then there was the time that daisy snuck into the house and we found her in our bedroom upstairs. Luckily she only pooed in the bathroom. Very civilized our Daisy.

Every single one of my raised beds has to be netted off which makes the garden look even more like a building site because we have about a dozen projects on the go at once which means piles of logs for the fire, dismantled pallet wood, metposts, scaffolding planks, 56 13" decking boards we pulled out of a skip, huge sacks of woodchip waiting to be dumped into chicken village once we've built it and a partridge in a pear tree. One day our garden will look the way it does in my head. Until then I choose to only focus on the good bits. Lol!

[lettucegrow!]

Nice garden, growing veg and chooks is a difficult combination. Mine are enclosed in a 4x3m pen, as I reallly want a lovely garden and grow stuff, and i dont want foxes or sparrow hawk getting them. Sometimes I feel mean as I would love to see them roaming around but compensate this with plenty of green stuff and treats. It's soooo annoying when you've got stuff growing and it then gets trashed.

[Newtothis]

Just a query. If I leave my comfrey in the chooks area that I am eventually going to build - will it do any harm if they eat it? Not worried about the comfrey - more the hens....

[Suechooks]

If its not good for them they'll leave it alone. I have some on my allotment and I don't think they've ever bothered with it.

[chris]

I read somewhere that you can feed wilted comfrey to hens.. it was recent too. Mine have left it alone in the garden though. They seem to prefer my raspberry shoots!

[VirginVegGrower]

LOL - Where here's a will there's a way! Where there's an escape route, there's a Chook!

I have one, a little black Hen I hatched last year, now named Houdini. I've given up putting her back in the run, and she now goes back when she wants. Thankfully they are nowhere near the Veg garden.

Our wheaten marans Rosemary went swimming today. She found her way under the five bar gate across four gardens, strolling past one of our neighbours who was mowing his lawn and walked straight into far neigbour's filthy and overgrown pond. We were in the garden - one minute she was at our feet, next she was gone. Paul fished her out of filthy pond and brought her back. Much to our shock as we were searching for her in the knot garden. We gave her a bath, Paul a tomato plant and some eggs to say thanks. She looked rather pleased with herself!

[Minamoo]

We had another chicken invasion today. Attila (who else would it be?) snuck into the house as I was leaving and I didn't notice her. She jumped on the kitchen counter, broke a bowl, ate my tomatoes, and pooed in strange places. My sister found her two hours after I left and is still cleaning up poo.

[miker2d2]

glad i got ducks instead of chickens, they haven't harmed my veg at all! mind you the grass has only just recovered after they turned it into a bog over the winter! serves me right from living on a hill where the water runs down.