By Brenda H.
Many of us who garden also raise
chickens, guineas, ducks, geese and turkeys. These fowl
can help us by eating the insects from our gardens,
flower gardens as well as vegetable gardens can benefit
from them. The key to the success of the birds'
contribution is the timing of when we let them go into
the garden so that they do more good than harm.
In general, if you let
chickens into the garden to graze while it is still full
of tomatoes, the chickens are most likely going to bite
into the tomatoes, corn, cucumbers, or whatever else
strikes their fancy.
They aren't as likely to have
worms and insects for dinner. But if you let them into
the garden as the garden plants have finished producing,
the chickens will go after worms and insects with a
vengeance. They will scratch to dig up anything that may
be under the dirt such as mealy worms. They will also
take some earthworms, but not enough to be a problem.
They will also eat some of the spent vegetation. The
insects and vegetation they consume make the eggs they
lay protein-packed and a yolk color of deep yellow to
deep orange. It is much better to let the chickens into
the garden between growing seasons; they do much better
Geese are great weed eaters
and walking lawn mowers. They just walk along clipping
off the top of the grass, not tearing it up as chickens
would do or snorkeling it like a duck would. Geese eat
only greenery, never bugs, as they are vegetarians.
Geese should have lots of room to forage and probably
the area should not be an enclosed garden. They are big
and may trample some plants, and sometimes will eat
vegetables such as asparagus and strawberries.
are more like grazing animals than any type of poultry.
Their beak and tongue are particularly well equipped for
grazing. The beak has sharp interlocking serrated edges
designed to easily cut and divide grass and other plant
tissue. The tongue at the tip is covered with hard,
hair-like projections, pointing towards the throat,
which quickly convey the pieces of grass and other
vegetable material into the throat. The rough covering
on the point of the tongue enables geese to bite off
plants even closer to the ground than sheep can. Because
of this, overstocking must be avoided as the ground will
Ducks are really good about
eating snails in the garden. They also do a bit of
weeding, but if they find a little bit of water in the
dirt, they will snorkel in it until they have themselves
a little pond to get muddy in. Lots of people have ducks
on farms where there isn't any water for the ducks to
swim in. We had four and eventually they became a
nuisance with their digging holes where there was water,
say where the water hose had been to fill containers for
the chickens, guineas and ducks. As soon as we'd fill
the duck pans with water, they would hop right in and
nasty the water up immediately. Since this went on and
on, we decided they would be happier on a lake and we
gave the four of them to a friend on Lake Conroe, where
they have been extremely happy living a duck's life for
two years now.
Turkeys need a large
area to roam so they wouldn't do very well enclosed in a
garden area. Get the young birds out onto the grass
early, even at 1 to 2 weeks. Turkeys have a hard time
with fences. If you want to get them used to moveable
fence, you have to start early. Otherwise, they will
just run through it. Start with a short fence using
rebar and heavy black landscape cloth when the chicks
are two weeks old (they roam out of their insulated
house to the fence). Then move the 5- to 6-week-old
birds to a day range with shelter pens surrounded by
poultry netting that has been doubled so that the holes
are small enough and the young turkeys can't squeeze
through. The young turkeys learn well enough that the
fence is a barrier at this early age that they will then
respect a fence for the rest of their life.
are indeed different to raise than chickens and you need
to try as much as possible to duplicate their natural
habitat. Turkeys like a lot of space to roam, and do
best within open-topped large range. Turkeys are
actually very personable and friendly, and will sit on
your back porch if you don't contain them, so keep this
in mind also.
Guinea fowl are my
all-time favorite birds to let into my vegetable gardens
for organic pest control. They are very careful not to
step on plants and once they see an insect, there is no
escaping the guineas. They eat weed seeds, certain weeds
and they stay much too busy to wallow dust bath holes.
They have their favorite place in the yard underneath a
pear tree for that. They don't peck tomatoes or any
vegetables. Ours have been trained to go inside their
house at dusk, preventing owls and other predators of
the night killing them. It is quite easy to train them
to their house, really. You just leave them in there for
a couple of months when they are growing, and then begin
letting them out for a couple of hours before sundown.
That way they don't venture off far at all but keep an
eye on them just in case. They are intelligent birds,
given the chance and some patience.
We have added
more baby guineas as of late and the grown guineas are
helping to train the little ones to go inside at night.
So my favorite fowl are the guineas and chickens, though
I may add a few Weeder Geese to the farm someday.