Ideas wanted for chicken friendly garden.....

I'm determined to have a nice garden but it also has to be chicken and dog friendly too....I'm trying to think of ways to discreetly protect some of the more delicate plants..but don't want the garden looking like an assault course...the chooks are free to wander where ever they like and i want to keep it that way.I use lots of green chicken wire to protect some plants but if anyone has any other ideas they'd be most welcome ...
Thanks ..

 

I have quite a big garden and ended up making a area just for them with picket fence and green mesh. They have a sand box, dirt boxes, tree trunk etc. I tried everything else before that and they always ate the plants i didn't want them too, sun bathed on them or dug them up

 

Sorry, Lolimac but I've no idea!
My dad always said that chickens make terrible gardeners, which sums it up perfectly for me.
The only plants I've ever known them not to eat are Nettles and Horseradish.

 

You need to cut the nettles and hang them up for the hens to peck at. They prefer them covered in aphids.

But a 'hen friendly' garden without any plants they like to eat, or with those they do covered in mesh sounds like a contradiction. A really hen friendly garden would have:

1) A lawn that's never cut
2) Beds with lots of exposed loose soil
3) Chives, Bright Lights Chard, etc. growing in the borders
4) A grape vine
5) Blackberries and cherry plums in the hedges
6) Lots of soft fruit and brassicas in the vegetable garden
7) Cherry tomato plants & herbs by the back door
8) An open back door.
Etc.

Your hens will love it!

 

Hi Scrungee, for my next live (as a hen), can I book a place in your hen garden?!!?

 

I don't mind to a point what the 'girls' go for but i'd like a bit more colour in the garden...i wouldn't mind but they go from one extreme to the other,if it's not rhubarb and delphiniums it's battenburg cake and dossing on the kitchen floor...what more do they want

 

When i had three chicken's when i moved in, i loved the idea of them running around the garden free. And they looked great, they were happy and the kids loved them BUT they poo'ed EVERYWHERE. It became a nightmare. They also ate all the emerging plants in spring. Later, during the summer when everything was big it was no problem. They did keep the Daddy Long Legs and slugs down which was great but the cons out weighed pro's. In the end, the fox got them. Not during the night but at 8am, 10 min after i'd let them out.
All in all, i would give them a safe pen

 

Sage n Onion?? Bit of Bisto lol DON'T BLACK. MY EYE When you Wake up it's 435am only an an hour n half to go I want to go to sleep and needed a laff

 

It may not work - literacy is not a strong point amongst Vulpines