Natural feeding of the flock: Feed poultry with fresh greens
Cover crops
I love growing groundcovers. If you like puzzles or playing chess, you’ll love these too: Despite the challenges that come with it—both in terms of space (a garden that also grows food crops) and time (all four seasons)—maximizing cover crops year-round brings so many benefits to soil fertility and structure that you can’t miss any opportunity to sneak in cover crops.
Fortunately, cover crops can do double duty as green fodder for the herd.We can cut the greens to take back to the flock – they grow back quickly – or let the hens grow the plants while they eat.
It’s worth noting that I no longer grow autumn crucifers – mustard, winter radish, raab, kale, rapeseed and turnip – as separate garden crops: I simply plant them as a cover crop in the fall, and there is plenty for everyone—the soil food web, our poultry, and us.
Weeds
Mixed cover crop, haute cuisine for mixed livestock. Photo courtesy of Bonnie Long.
Weeds can be frustrating for gardeners and landscapers who are convinced that nothing is growing on their plot of land that they have not planted, but many wild plants that have a mind of their own make a valuable contribution to the nutrition of the herd; and some (dandelion, white goosefoot, nettle, burdock, common sorrel) contain more protein than alfalfa. Poultry love them all.
Take the dandelion, for example, which costs millions of dollars each year to eradicate, but which is so nutritious when cooked or in salads that herbalists consider it a superfood and medicine.
Furthermore, it is a lively accumulator: Its tap root grows into deep subsoil and extracts minerals, especially calcium, which it makes available to shallow-rooted plants. (Both of the fertility plants discussed on the previous page—comfrey and nettle—are also lively accumulators.)
Things to consider when dealing with weeds
Of course, such friends may not be equally welcome in all parts of the garden, orchard and landscape, so remember that weeding duties can provide valuable green fodder for the herd. The most useful weeds where you live will vary. Those that are toxic also vary, so be sure to familiarize yourself with those that may be hazardous to poultry where you live.
Examples of poisonous plants include castor bean (Ricinus communis), milkweed (Asclepias spp.), unripe nightshade berries (Solanum nigrum), oleander (Nerium oleander), thornbeam (Datura stramonium), Phytolacca americana berries, and yew (Taxus spp.). However, such plants rarely pose a real threat to chickens – they avoid most of them instinctively.
It should be remembered that in some cases the threat is not the plant itself, but the ripe seeds. For example, hairy vetch (Vicia villosa) is an excellent nitrogen-fixing ground cover crop, and its leaves are edible for poultry, but remember that its seeds are poisonous. Chickens are unlikely to eat Datura, but they may eat its seeds. The seeds of both plants have been linked to actual poultry poisoning.
Feeding the herd with edible weeds
Once you have identified the poisonous plants to watch out for, you can experiment with harvesting by weeding out non-toxic species. Weeds vary in their mineral content, so the more weeds birds have to choose from, the more likely their mineral intake will be balanced.
In most temperate areas, the following tasty weeds should be common. Many of them are also good food for humans.
- Prickly lettuce (Lactuca serriola), will likely appear in shaded areas.
- Purslane (Portulaca oleracea), luxurious in omega-3 fatty acids, vitamins and minerals.
- Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) – superfood also for chickens.
- Lamb quarter (Chenopodium album), whose common name “fat hen” indicates its suitability as poultry feed.
- Yellow Dock (Rumex crispus) is luxurious in vitamin A, protein, iron and potassium, although it should not be overeaten due to its oxalic acid content.
- common chickweed (Stellaria media), where do you think it got its name from? Common and prolific, both the plant and its seeds are a very nutritious food.
Mowed grass
If your situation prevents you from bringing your herd to pasture, bring the pasture to it: Grass clippings—from lawns that have not been treated with toxic chemicals—make excellent fresh feed. Miniature, fast-growing grass provides the highest level of nutrition. Don’t feed too much at once – excess grass clippings build up in an oxygen-free, slippery mess. However, if you utilize birds to work on your compost pile, you don’t have to worry about feeding them too much grass clippings – the chickens will compost anything they don’t eat anyway.