Our
chicken forest pasture is still very much in the experimental stages, but one part has been a
whole-hearted success already. I've been dumping garden debris in
a lazy compost pile in the pasture, and the chickens immediately come
and pick through the plants (adding a bit of nitrogen to speed up the
decomposition process at the same time.)
By
keeping an eye on their excitement levels, I've discovered what our
chickens do and don't like. Our lazy cockerels turn up their
noses at run-of-the-mill weeds, but are quick to gulp down clover
leaves. When I tossed in several big wheelbarrow loads of
gone-to-seed snow peas (after picking out the best seeds for next year,
of course), the chickens scratched at the pile for hours.
Of course, chickens like
protein, so their love of legumes is no surprise. What did shock
me was their favorite garden food of all --- broccoli leaves! As
I tossed broccoli leaves over the fence, our chickens tore them into
little bits and gulped the green stuff down as fast as I could throw it
in. In fact, when given the choice between cabbage worms and
broccoli leaves, the chickens unanimously chose the latter. What
do you think broccoli leaves have in them that makes the greens so
tasty?
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