Stuck run

[lindi]

Hi

 

Every year my mother very kindly comes and plants up about 5 planters on our patio and all has been well. That is until we got the mob!! We have tried protecting them as much as we can - wire round pots, moved on top of rabbit hutch when they are free roaming, protecting with chairs etc. We have been partially successful with 3 pots which are OK and 2 completely decimated. Has anyone found plants that they don't like that we could use? The only one they don't seem to like is a miniature rose. As far as I can see Busy Lizzies are the most delicious thing if you are a chicken with fuscias coming a close second and geraniums will do if you eaten everything else!! Milly is most persistant and Mavis is her willing accomplice. Any advice will be gratefully received on plants or other forms of protection.

[Hen Watch]

Hanging baskets.......

 

Pots within chicken reach are trashed. Now the chickens have their own fenced area we can put pots on the patio that they can't reach.

[Abbey Road Girl]

I agree with Chatty Chicken--put them higher than your hens can jump (I do like seeing mine look like basketball players doing a slam dunk, but they can do a lot of damage!).

 

Mine, though, tend to ignore pots which have only dirt and not greeny bits (arching roses in a pot for example). Someone has suggested that covering soil in a pot with bits of slate will put them off.

 

I am raising as many long-leggedy plants as possible!

 

Ground floor: hens.

 

First floor and above: leaves and flowers!

[lindi]

Thanks for your replies. I think I have a particularly persistent one. I looked out of the living room window this evening to find Milly had somehow got on top of the rabiit hutch (a 2 storey model on legs I hasten to add) and was busily chomping on the chives - another favourite!! Top marks for ingenuity on her part. Out witted by a chicken! I think more hanging baskets may be the answer as suggested. My mother in law has a trough on legs and am going to give that a try but after rabbit hutch incident I'm not convinced.

[Olly]

Mine don't tend to eat the plants, but they do scratch in the soil - I've used slate chippings and it's been 100% successful.

 

If your are after the tender stuff, that won't help, though. Er - try fencing off the area where the pots are? Or sit there with a water-pistol, and squirt them every time they eat something.

[Egluntyne]

They are not supposed to like Lavender and twiggy herbs such as Rosemary.

[SharonX]

I brought a lovely chillie plant from B&Q the other day and left it on the patio thinking they wouldn't touch it. Wrong! They have nialated it even eating all the baby chillies that were on it. I couldn't believe it, wonder if we will get spicy eggs!

They have never touched my Rosamary but they have had a go at the lavender.

They get in all my large planters and scratch all the stones out and basically make a right mess. I am going to give up with pots next year and go for hanging.

[Jan]

I fully sympathise I found that they don't eat pansies, and planted two tubs full - leaving one tub with just compost as Freda had declared this her personal dust bath. Unfortunately she decided one bathtub wasn't enough and uprooted every pansy from the other tubs and left them strewn on the path! I replanted them, but after a second 'clearing out' session I've given up on gardening altogether

[Mutrix Farmers]

Patio planters and chickens don't mix well! I have fuchsias on my patio and the chooks have a nibble when they think I'm not looking . I have a contorted hazel in a large wooden planter, and the girls decided it looked like a good dust bath. I'm surprised the tree is still alive. That naughty behaviuor only stopped when I moved the planter to an out of bounds area.

 

The lavender and rosemary in the border are untouched though, so I may plant some of those up in pots too.