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Sunday, May 8, 2011

Those Damn Hens!!

Spring is really here! A whole weekend of 60's. Enough sun to pink my cheeks and make me a REAL red neck! The hens are really enjoying the grass and bugs as well-they have freee range of our place during daylight. They also helped themselves to a tasty salad consisting of my pepper and tomato seedlings! In hind sight it was not a great idea -but i thought i would treat the tiny seedings to some out-of-doors, you know just an hour of cloudy afternoon. I came around the corner of the house to find the birds having a snack!! Uggh, some of the tomatoes will survive but every pepper was nipped off. Now this is Northern WI and I still have time before anything can safely go out--time to start some more seeds tomorrow :)

4 comments:

Miss Effie said...

Welcome to gardening with hens! I've been clipping wings tonight to keep a couple of wayward girls from flying the coop .... and dining in my "eat one-eat another" buffet in the flower bed.

I have one Aracuna that loves to dig and scratch and pull and weed. Unfortunately, a weed to her is a flower to me.

Plant on, sista!

Hickchick said...

I am re-evaluating my landscape plans...is there any flowering annuals that the hens will leave alone? I was hoping to plant a border of marigolds and kitchen herbs along the front walk...
perhaps i will go buy just a few and see what happens. We are moving their portable coop further and further from the house so perhaps flowers will have a chance!!
Kris

Miss Effie said...

So far ... there ain't nothing a chicken won't eat. Except dandelions... and they will eat those if you pull them!

And tomato/strawberry/raspberry/red season --- they will eat everything.

Electric poultry netting or fencing is the cure. We were an animal welfare approved farm but they decided that they wanted all chickens on pasture all the time. And my vegetable garden and the flowers were gone! We decided a large run --30x50 -- worked for us.

Hickchick said...

Thanks Miss Effie!