Chickens are eating my hostas!!!

[Lefebvre1995]

UGHHH!!!! my 'ladies' are eating my beautiful lush hosta plants. I like them to be able to free range our property. Does anyone know of a home- made remedy I can spray/sprinkle/treat the plants that will deter the chickens?

[Horseyrider]

Nope. I ended up putting a short green chicken wire fence around mine. They thought I'd planted them a salad bar.

[thesedays]

Hostas are edible, and are a popular green in Japan. Guess the chickens like them too!

[chickenista]

Either the chickens are behind a fence or the plants are...
you just can't have both..sadly.

[Seth]

Get payback, eat their eggs. Seth

[PrincessFerf]

I love having my chickens free range; however, if its green they'll eat it. A couple of years ago I put an idea into practice which has worked ok for them.

In their run I built a "protected greens" feeder for them. This way they will have some greens to eat but can't destroy the plants.

I took a couple of wooden pallets, some hardware cloth, a rake and grass seed (or whatever type of plant you want to grow for the chickens to eat). I raked up the ground in their run real good and planted the seeds and watered them. Then I placed the pallets on top of the newly seeded area. Staple the hardware cloth across the slats of the pallet, this creates a "screen" to further protect the plants as they grow.

As the plants grow, they will grow up through the slats/hardware cloth on the pallet. The chickens eat the tops off of the plants/grass (as soon as they grow above the pallet) but they can't get to the roots to scratch and destroy the plant.

It isn't a perfect system, but it has worked well for me. I do still let the chickens free range, but only when I can "baby sit" (keep them out of my garden beds) in the evenings before the sun goes down.

Note: I generally have less than 20 layers and I use an entirely different setup for our meat poultry.

[ronbre]

you might find a lot of small sticks to make a more natural looking barrier around your flower garden..one thing that is very pretty is to take longish soft sticks and weave them into a pattern for a barrier..or just stick them every 4 inches or so around the plants or whatever width will work to keep the girls from going through..maybe some bamboo if you can find some cheaply..you might weave a wattle fence..the ones i like the best have a long stick bent to a curve and each end stuck in the ground, and the next one overlapping by half..continuing, around..very pretty

[chickenista]

About the wattle fence..
if it is wide enough for them to perch on they will just go over.
They will flap up to the top, sit on it ad jump down.. and eat and eat and eat.
Annoying things sometimes, those chickens.

[Knitwitch]

I was never able to keep free range chickens out of gardens and flower beds. Wherever I didn't want them digging and eating is where they always preferred, especially amongst the ripening tomatoes (pecked holes in them all!). The suggestions are correct...a barrier is needed for one or the other. If I had it to do all over again, which I hope to someday sooner than later, I would make a very large pen for them with occasional foraging outings, and the idea of a protected "salad" bar for them in the run is genius.

[MO_cows]

I had pretty good luck putting the el cheapo wire "stick in the ground" fence around plants I wanted to protect. The chickens can hop over it but often didn't. Also if I caught them in beds and planters, I would squirt them with the hose. Not 100% effective but it made the stuff I wanted to protect less desirable to forage than everything else. If you want a 'better homes and gardens' yard, you need good fence.

[Marthas_minis]

Fence, fence, fence. I have a chicken run for spring & early summer and all my beds are fenced with chicken wire for the rest of the year when they free range. It still doesn't always keep them out. 2 or 3 of my hens will decimate any part of my garden in a matter of minutes. Last summer, they took out a small patch of cannas they had ignored for months previous.

I use Seth's recommendation and eat their eggs in retaliation. 😉

Imagine the topics if our chickens had a forum to complain about their owners...

MM

[wogglebug]

This is an intelligence test, run by Mother Nature (Yeah, that one! MN is a slitch).

Thing is, you're failing.
Simple solution - eat the hostas.
Whoever gets there first is the winner in the IQ Derby.
Are you gunna let yourself be beat out by a buncha birds?

[Westexas]

One year I ordered some very nice caladium bulbs.......and guineas. No worse than roses and mums to feed the deer, I guess! Love the salad bar idea, though. We have to confine our birds, but I do throw them any weeds that I pull along with the kitchen compost and insects and the occasional rattlesnake or copperhead we kill. Keeps 'em happy.