Gardening with chickens...they love corn!

I'm usually pretty good with keeping the chickens in check when it comes to the garden. This year I screwed up a bit though. Usually the whole garden is surrounded with the green plastic fence that comes in rolls at TSC. It goes in very easy with the step-in spikes and generally keeps the chickens out. 

This year however, we had a graduation party here. We decided to take the fence down to mow and once it was down I thought "That looks nice, 1 day won't hurt" LOL  First...1 day became 3 and those sweet little chickens ate the broccoli plants completely clean! 

Chickens in the garden

The fence was then put back around the garden, but was rerouted to leave the corn out. My thoughts were that the corn was tall enough they wouldn't kill it, but they could keep the bugs and weeds in check and have a fun little jungle to play in. Boy was I wrong! I quickly discovered that the chickens were jumping up to grab the corn and pull it down to their height...then picking those cobs clean! 

So, the fence gets rerouted again (lesson learned) to keep the chickens out, and the corn is saved! Truly, I never thought they could reach most of the corn, and I didn't think they could figure out how to get it down to their height. I made them share the ruined corn with the guineas though...so everybody got their fair share!

~Lisa

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