To feed or not to feed - that is the question!

[ancee]

Today as I was cutting back daffodil leaves, I googled to see if I could feed them to chickens = NO! There was an ENORMOUS (USA site) list of stuff they can't eat - some of it I'd already fed them , and they'd happily eaten! eek! They are all still very alive and clucking about. Does anyone have a less comprehensive list of stuff chickens can't eat? And perhaps one of stuff they really love? I'd been told about rhubarb leaves and anything potato, but I didn't realise so much stuff was so very hazardous! Parsley and Coriander, Sage. Good grief!

[Kristen]

Today as I was cutting back daffodil leaves

Bit early? The Daffs would prefer to have gone brown before you cut them back, otherwise they are unlikely to flower well in following year(s). Maybe they were early flowering though?

[Verinda]

My hens are free range. I haven't dared look up what they should and shouldn't eat because there's not much I can do about it. I know they shouldn't eat ivy but it's all over the place. I have never seen them eating it so I'm hoping they will not poison themselves and eat the wrong thing. Hen's must surely have some natural instinct about what they should or shouldn't eat?

My hens ramble about my herb garden but interestingly do not eat the herbs, well only the chives. They haven't touched the daffodils either...thankfully!

[ancee]

Kristen, they'd flowered very early! They were still green, but in the wrong place, so as I am sick of them, I'm shifting them. Verinda, they didn't eat the herbs I'd given them - they must've just known they weren't supposed to! At the time I was wondering if they thought I was being a bit 'funny' with them as I'd put in sage!

[Kristen]

They were still green, but in the wrong place, so as I am sick of them, I'm shifting them

I've had ones like that ...

the way I shifted them was when they came up following spring (and a year or two after that where I missed some). I placed my bulb planter with the shoot's leaves in the middle and stuck it in and hoped for the best. Some grew at an angle and got sliced through - tough love! - but about 3/4 came out with a plug of soil and roots, and I replanted them in a new hole in a better location.

I guess you could do that when they are dying down, but my clay soil is setting like concrete by then ...