Safe Flowers for Chickens

[Althepalunusual]

Hello!

I am looking ahead as we work on our chicken run area. I would like to plant some flowers along the edge outside the run that the chickens can peck at and enjoy through the hardware cloth as they grow. What plants have you enjoyed having for beauty and for health benefits for your chickens? We live in Southern California, for reference, zone 10a!

 

[SmiYa0126]

You're so lucky! Grown herbs like oregano, thyme, parsley, calendula, marigold, zucchini, peas.

 

[saysfaa]

Mine liked cosmos. I looked them up - they are edible for people too.

They also like clover and dandelions.

 

[Perris]

Your options are many. For example, my chickens eat the leaves, flowers, or fruits of borage, buttercups, cephaleria, chickweed, clover, comfrey, cornus, cotoneaster, crocus, daisy, dandelion, elder etc., and the flowers as well as leaves of most species of grass. A botanically diverse / weedy grass area to forage on will do their health much more good than pretty beds accessible only by poking their beaks through bars.

 

[Althepalunusual]

Your options are many. For example, my chickens eat the leaves, flowers, or fruits of borage, buttercups, cephaleria, chickweed, clover, comfrey, cornus, cotoneaster, crocus, daisy, dandelion, elder etc., and the flowers as well as leaves of most species of grass. A botanically diverse / weedy grass area to forage on will do their health much more good than pretty beds accessible only by poking their beaks through bars.

 

[Althepalunusual]

Wonderful ideas—continue along the alphabet if you don’t mind! I am planning on a variety of vegetation inside the run, but I have always liked the idea of some flowers around the outside that are not only safe (and pretty) but beneficial to them.

Your options are many. For example, my chickens eat the leaves, flowers, or fruits of borage, buttercups, cephaleria, chickweed, clover, comfrey, cornus, cotoneaster, crocus, daisy, dandelion, elder etc., and the flowers as well as leaves of most species of grass. A botanically diverse / weedy grass area to forage on will do their health much more good than pretty beds accessible only by poking their beaks through bars.