Saturday, September 12, 2009

I won the battle (I think, maybe)

I hesitate to say that I outsmarted the chickens, not because you might laugh, but because I could still be proved wrong. If you've never owned chickens, you have no idea how challenging it can be to live in harmony with them. Their needs to scratch for dinner and dust themselves tend to be in direct conflict with my need to have nice flower gardens.

Chickens are drawn to freshly turned dirt like flies to carrion or ducks to water. They can't help themselves. When they see a newly planted flower bed, they're not thinking, "Oh, how beautiful!" They're thinking, "A new dust bath!" or "Buffet! Hey, kids, earthworms for dinner!" Then they scratch and twist and turn. The dirt goes flying and so do the spring bulbs that were planted five inches deep, as well as the new transplants.

Ever since putting up the new fence this summer, we've been wanting to create a nice flower garden to welcome visitors. We've been slowed down by the knowledge that the chickens would scratch it up, as they have scratched up all the other things we've planted that are within their reach. So, what to do? The answer seems so obvious now. It finally occurred to me that the common denominator in their scratching escapades is dirt. If they don't see the dirt, they won't scratch. Duh! So, we hid the dirt underneath rocks.

So far, it seems to be working. The chickens walk right past the new flower beds. I probably should have waited at least a couple weeks (instead of six days) to post this, but I'm so proud of the lovely little gardens that I wanted to share. There is one on each side of the gate, and the only thing I don't like is that I can't see them very well from the house. But they are lovely, and I smile every time I pull into our driveway. We'll have daffodils and tulips to greet us in the spring, and I'm hoping that between the mums, asters, coreopsis, and sedum, something will come back next summer.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

What a fantastic, creative idea! I can just hear the chickens now: "Stupid rocks! They're in the way. Come on, kids, let's go someplace chicken-friendly!"

Anonymous said...

You do realise you have dared them chcikens, right?
Just upped the ante...I recommend razor wire...works every time!!

LOL! I can only tease you 'cause "Been there, done that....now it's the goats that cause the headaches in the yard!!
Ever heard the sayin, "if water can get throughit, so can a goat?"
Yup. That's a fact!

The flowers ARE a gorgeous shade of blue :)

Deborah Niemann said...

Welcome to the blog, Mrs. Bee! Oh, yeah, we've been through a lot with the goats! We've had a terrible time getting fruit trees started, because if the goats get out, they go straight for them and strip the bark, which kills them. If the goats' milk didn't make such delicious cheese, they'd have been gone a long time ago. Hmm ... maybe they realize that?

MaskedMan said...

Never mind defeating (or at least staving off) the chickens... The rock beds look really good in their own right!

momanna98 said...

Hopefully it works for you. It doesn't work for me. We have a short gate and behind it have some rocks and flowers. The chickens found out the rocks are nifty hiding spots for bugs and now scratch away at the rocks, tearing apart the week block and leaving crazy piles of rocks around. They even decided to start laying their eggs in the bushes.

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