Grow healthy herbs for your chickens to boost nutrition, repel pests, and support flock wellness. Easy-to-grow options your hens will love!
I know a lot of people really love to spoil their chickens. I’m not really one of them. I have a lot of items that I grow for my chickens and my other animals, but I let them do a lot of foraging for themselves. Once the heat gets to be over 90° I’m pretty much miserable so I don’t like going out in the heat much. And I think it’s really engaging and exciting for the animals to be able to forage for their own food.
That said, I do keep younger chicks in an Omlet Eglu so I like to offer them some forage items, along with moving the Eglu each day in order for them to have fresh grass.
Today I’m going to share which plants that I use for my chickens… these are geared predominantly towards plants that are easy to grow and abundant in my Food Forest.
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Herbs for Chickens
Raspberry Leaves: I grow a lot of raspberries and the leaves generally go unused otherwise so these make a great forage item to feed.
Oregano: I find oregano pretty easy to grow and it has a tendency to take over the garden a little bit. In my opinion. That makes it ideal so that I’m not struggling to grow enough for my animals and myself. Usually there’s plenty to go around. It dries nicely and smells great.
Mint: Mint is extremely easy to grow and extremely invasive. It will escape a planter despite any of your best efforts. Because I chose violence, I planted catnip and cat mint directly in the soil of my garden. Mistakes were made. But despite hating the smell of mint, it may potentially repel bugs so keeping some dried mint to use in the coop bedding can be helpful.
Hyssop is another herb that grows well in my garden and is edible for the birds.
Jerusalem artichoke leaves are also pretty good as an option, and they’re very easy to grow. They also may like the roots.
Thyme: I never seem to have enough thyme, but this is one that I’ve been trying to grow more of. It makes a really lovely ground cover. It also smells great and dries easily.
It looks really lovely in the front of garden beds and keeps weeds from growing through for the most part. It’s a low lying plant.
Lavender: Lavender is an herb that I think would be wonderful in the chicken coop and make everything smell great. I’m a bit greedy about my lavender though. I tend to save it for human use. But it’s fairly easy to grow, at least in my zone, and it comes back every year.
Parsley: Parsley is one that you can add. This is my first year growing it so we’ll see how it goes!
Rosemary: This is another one that I don’t get enough of for both human and animal use. But it’s definitely an option if you have good luck growing it.
Comfrey: Comfrey is another plant that grows really well and easily. It can be used as a forage for some farm animals, although I find they prefer to eat it later in the season once their favorites have died off. It doesn’t really have a distinct smell, but it has a very pretty leaf and flower.
How to Use the Herbs for Chickens
I also find that dried herbs make a great addition to most animal bedding to help keep it fresh. They can be added fresh during the growing months…
Extra herbs often end up dried at my house so that way they can be used over the winter. It just makes everything smell so much nicer. I store them in glass jars or in other reusable containers- just make sure moisture cannot get into the container.
If you want to dry your own herbs, you can just hang them upside down in a nice dry spot. If you have very high humidity, you might want to move them indoors to dry. A dehumidifier makes a big difference. I have learned that the hard way.
You can also use a dehydrator or oven at a very low temperature to dry them, but I find this to limit how many herbs I can dry at once.
Here’s the video if you prefer video version!
@doityourselfdanielle 🌿 Boost your flock’s health naturally! Here are some easy herbs you can grow for your chickens—plus simple ways to feed them fresh or dried! 🐔✨ Which herb is your chickens' favorite?👇 #BackyardChickens #ChickenCare #HerbGarden #ForagingForChickens #HomesteadLife #ChickenTips #DriedHerbs #FreshHerbs #ChickensOfTikTok #GardenToCoop #NaturalChickenCare #Chickens #Chicks #Foraging #Gardening ♬ Chopin Nocturne No. 2 Piano Mono – moshimo sound design
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