Landscaping Safely for Your Flock

Chickens and gardens. Magazine or Instagram photos may show the two co-existing in the loveliest of settings, but a few measures are needed for both the health of your flock and your plants. 

Kathy Shea Mormino, author of The Chicken Chick’s Guide to Backyard Chickens, shares several strategies to help you create a beautiful landscape you can enjoy while also keeping your hens healthy and happy. While her chickens live in a chicken coop and run, she does let them enjoy foraging in her backyard on occasion.

Consider chickens’ needs and avoid landscaping inside their pen

Chickens need a dry chicken run or pen. When you introduce landscape plantings or containers inside the pen, the plants will require watering, which can result in damp or wet areas in the chicken pen. That can lead to various problems with parasites. Landscape plantings can also take up valuable space that chickens need, putting them closer to one another and increasing the likelihood of negative behavior.

Consider different zones and their purposes

The chicken coop is the building that chickens sleep in and lay their eggs in. The attached outdoor structure that is fenced and usually covered to keep out predators is the chicken pen or chicken run. The area outside the coop and pen is what Kathy considers her chicken yard, which happens to also be her backyard. That is the area where her in-ground plantings are and where she places beautiful containers filled with attractive plants. 

Protect plants from curious chickens

Chickens like to explore their world by scratching the ground with their feet and pecking at things with their beaks. They seem to be attracted to any bare spots in your landscape, which means they often head straight for any newly planted or mulched areas. To keep them from digging up new plants or from throwing all the mulch in your landscape beds onto the lawn, plan before you let your flock loose to free range in your yard. Barriers such as bricks, pavers, rocks, or even small logs placed at and around the base of plants prevent chickens from damaging plant roots. In mulched areas, bury hardware cloth under the mulch. Kathy advises bending under any sharp edges of the hardware cloth to protect the birds’ feet from lacerations. The use of hardware cloth in areas of the lawn that need to be reseeded is also helpful. 

Avoid tossing treats or feeding your chickens in your landscaped yard

While chickens will enjoy foraging and exploring your landscape, broadcasting feed to them in this area is an invitation for them to dethatch it. 

Use fencing

Fencing can be used to help protect certain areas of your landscape. One area that will need to be protected is a vegetable garden. While some people may have success in growing vegetables in raised beds without their chickens jumping up into them, a raised bed is no guarantee as protection from curious birds. The best bet is some type of fence. Depending on your needs, either permanent or portable poultry fencing can help keep both you and your birds happy and your prized tomatoes or other plants safe.

Plant possibilities

It is hard to tell which plants chickens will be attracted to and which they will leave alone. Plant what you like and what is suited for your USDA Zone. Rather than buying lots of plants, Kathy advises buying and planting a few and seeing how it goes. Perennials and ornamental grasses, such as Miscanthus, are good choices. Even if portions of perennials get eaten, they likely will put out new growth the following year. She also grows herbs such as mint, oregano, rosemary, sage, and thyme. Spiked plants like Dracaenas add an interesting element, pair well with other plants, and may help keep birds out of plants. Protect plants until they become established, and they will have a greater chance of surviving occasional visits from your flock. 

Garden up

Containers filled with annuals and perennials are a way to be creative in the garden. Kathy says this is a favored strategy to make plants less convenient to her “feathered wrecking crew.”

Hide the perlite and the vermiculite

Both are often used in potting mixes and the tiny white specks are quite attractive to chickens. “If they see perlite or vermiculite, say goodbye to your plants,” says Kathy. “Opt for potting soil without perlite or vermiculite or hide it beneath mulch or stones.”

Plants to avoid

While there is a toxic plant list for chickens, Kathy says that the reality is that you will likely need to implement measures to keep your plants protected from your flock rather than protecting your flock from plants. She notes that in any alphabetical list of toxic plants, azaleas top the list, which Kathy has in her landscape. “They eat the occasional azalea flower and I’ve never had a chicken die from my azaleas,” she says. 

Enrich the compost pile

Add waste from the chicken coop to the compost pile and allow it to decompose before using it as fertilizer in your garden beds.

Accent with hardscaping

Stone walls, pavers, or brick for walks, and other elements add interest and beauty.

Add whimsy

Kathy likes to decorate her yard with repurposed natural, found, and otherwise free objects like logs, branches, watering cans, wagons, buckets, wooden ladders, and other items. Use your imagination and look at found objects as possibilities for whimsy.

“Chickens enhance your landscape,” says Kathy. “They are lawn ornaments. They are beautiful and fun to watch.” A little trial and error and proven strategies can help make chicken keeping and gardening pleasurable pastimes. 

More information about gardening around chickens