For the birds & the bees

What to plant for happy hens & friends

If they have the choice, chickens prefer wooded areas, avoid bright sun, and will stay close to their housing, tree cover, or other shelter. Research into red jungle fowl in India, the closest wild relatives of domestic poultry, shows they prefer: ■ young forests; ■ where forests meet fields ■ scrubby/shrubby areas;

■ bamboo forests;

■ patches of tall grass for nesting;

■ cultivated fields.

It's often not practical to plant forests of trees and bamboo, but running poultry under trees in an orchard or food forest has a lot of benefits.

UK research compared poultry freeranging in areas with 20 percent tree cover with those on tree-free ranges. It showed hens living with tree cover:

■ roamed further, so manure was more widely spread, helping to maintain soil and plants in the range, and causing less parasitic contamination;

■ produced eggs with better shell quality, and there were less ‘seconds' during collection and packing;

■ had better health and welfare;

■ had lower levels of feather pecking causing injury;

■ had lower mortality, as birds had plenty of places to hide from threats, eg hawks.

Other bonuses were less mud, less contaminated run-off getting into waterways, and an overall improvement in farm biodiversity.

Trees for poultry

The same UK research found:

■ the best spacing for trees on a poultry range is 2m apart, in rows 4m wide;

■ plantings should start near the coop and go out onto the range to encourage poultry to move away from the coop;

■ fast-growing trees such as poplar and willow worked well, plus they could be pollarded to prevent trees from getting too tall and creating too much shade. To pollard a tree, the trunk is cut off at about head height; it then sprouts lots of stems, creating an umbrella effect. This also helps pasture plants under the canopy to thrive.

■ it was best to avoid adding bushy plants with foliage down to ground level as this habitat encouraged birds to lay outside the coop;

■ trees could provide an additional cash crop, such as fruit, nuts, and firewood.

The following are trees that also provide nutritious feed for free-range poultry.