Chickens in the Garden

Chickens and gardens aren’t a match made in heaven, but they can coexist and even benefit from each other.

Lisa Steele, author of Fresh Eggs Daily: Raising happy, healthy chickens ... naturally

(St. Lynn’s Press, 2013), laughs at pictures of chickens on beautiful green lawns. “They must have just put the chickens there about five minutes earlier,” she says. “Chickens scratch the roots out, so grass doesn’t stand a chance.”

Steele, of Suffolk, Va., lets her chickens free-range on a limited basis — typically a couple of hours before dark. Part-time freeranging allows gardeners more control and gives chickens less time to get into areas where you don’t want them.

On my family’s single acre in Southern California, our small flock free-ranges all day.

There’s no formal lawn but lots of flowering plants, shrubbery, ornamental and fruiting trees, plus vegetables and herbs.

Like many poultry keepers, we’ve found a way to compromise that keeps us, and our chickens, happy.

A Symbiotic Compromise

Large, established plants and trees fare just fine, even when chickens dig about near their bases. Fallen leaves get turned, tilled and broken up, which aids their transformation into rich soil. Plus, the chickens add fertilizer in the form of their nitrogen-rich poop. Plants may also benefit from the soil aeration that chicken scratching provides.

Bonnie Jo Manion, co-author of Gardening with Free-Range Chickens for Dummies

(For Dummies, 2013), says chickens clean up under fruit trees, eating fallen fruits, insects and maggots. In warm weather, the chickens appreciate plants’ shade, shelter from predators and nourishment from insects. Losing harmful insects benefits the plants, as well. My family’s chickens eat enough insects that we don’t need pesticides. Besides, they’re fun to watch leaping across the yard after a grasshopper as it flies, lands and flies again. Inevitably, the grasshopper loses, which leads to another funny spectacle as the hens contend for the prize. Often, one sneaky hen snatches it from the original catcher.

Of course, she then runs off with the stolen goods, with the other hens in hot pursuit.

Because our chickens eat plant-harming snails, we rarely see one on our property — ditto for slugs. We’re pleased our chickens don’t bother garden-beneficial ladybugs. Your experiences may be different. Some keepers say their chickens do eat ladybugs but won’t eat slugs. Because of slugs’ potential to devastate plants, some people train their chickens to eat slugs. Internet instructions abound, often with unsavory chopping and blending techniques not for the faint of heart.