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- #11
Detlor Poultry
Attractive To Bees
Thank you! Oh no, I do free range all of my poultry; there is a 1-ft high wire 'decorative' fence surrounding the garden... these pictures were just taken before I got bantams. 
And this year, the fence is coming down; I'm setting up my garden so that the large fowl creatures would have trouble wreaking much carnage, and the ducks won't be able to access much muck, and the bantams will wander into the garden and probably won't be able to find the flowers -- I'm tightly cramming everything this year -- it will improve the look of the garden, and reuce (or eliminate) any access my birds have. My bantams never even bothered going near my garden last year -- this is because they found out they could run faster than the turkeys (the only birds on the farm not free-ranged), so that nice, juicy corn is easy pickins! Most of the plants that are going back in my garden this year are about 1 - 1.5ft. high - high enough the chicken can't do much harm via scratching. I did find out last year that ducks love peony flowers! And they don't harm them! They dig there bills deep into the flowers and suck up those weird little beetles that you always see breeding in the peonies. And the ducks end up smelling nicer, too!
And this year, the fence is coming down; I'm setting up my garden so that the large fowl creatures would have trouble wreaking much carnage, and the ducks won't be able to access much muck, and the bantams will wander into the garden and probably won't be able to find the flowers -- I'm tightly cramming everything this year -- it will improve the look of the garden, and reuce (or eliminate) any access my birds have. My bantams never even bothered going near my garden last year -- this is because they found out they could run faster than the turkeys (the only birds on the farm not free-ranged), so that nice, juicy corn is easy pickins! Most of the plants that are going back in my garden this year are about 1 - 1.5ft. high - high enough the chicken can't do much harm via scratching. I did find out last year that ducks love peony flowers! And they don't harm them! They dig there bills deep into the flowers and suck up those weird little beetles that you always see breeding in the peonies. And the ducks end up smelling nicer, too!
, so they raise chicks and ducklings to eat weeds and bugs and other wild flora. The fowls grow up and stare at my garen and think: 'Mama didn't tell me I could eat that!'. Although, being inquisitive by nature, if they suspect there is food, they will dine! You brought up a very good point about early spring -- when my plants are taller than the chickens, I find they won't do any damage, but for the month or so that they are shorter... I may have to, like Lesa suggested, put up a fence in spring time.
