Thinking about the chooks!
What are Chicken Greens
Let’s hear it for the hens!
When I think of chickens....
I think of fresh free range eggs scrambled to perfection on toast with a small sprig of parsley (from the garden of course), maybe a nice piece of bacon, mushrooms and tomatoes for brunch at home on a wintry Sunday morning. Looks like that's what's in store for us this weekend so I'm sure going to get what I wish for!Funnily enough when others think of chickens…
They’re thinking more about the chicken than the egg! I have to admit that Gerard was rather inspired when he added Chicken Greens to our range last year. Who would have thought that we would see it rocket to our Top Ten? It seems that there are more fowl-lovers, no offence intended, out there than I realized. My mother-in-law, Margaret, loved her chooks. Once she had confined their range to the exterior of her kitchen garden and forgiven them all prior transgressions, she enjoyed many hours of mutual adoration with her “girls”. They all had names, of course, and our children could still name them - Henrietta, Harriet and about six others!
You don’t need a quarter acre to keep them ….
Hens just quietly cluck and peck the ground and nobody even knows they’re there. They eat flies and other insects for you, keeping to a minimum the annoying flying things in your garden. They also eat your vegetable scraps, lowering your volume of rubbish. And, eventually, they give you eggs. Lots of them with any luck!So back to those Chicken Greens …
If you want to give your hens a treat, and the roosters too if they are behaving themselves, try our blend. It contains Plantain, Minutina, Parsley, Cocksfoot, Dandelion, Subterranean Clover and Chicory. Most have tap roots or vigorous roots that will quickly regrow leaves that are eaten. You have the choice of either sowing it in trays which you can place in your chook pen and then remove or sowing it in a small area which can be grazed but then allowed to recover. Great for the health of your hens and so you know where some of your food (at least your eggs) comes from.Give it a try it and see if you can help Chicken Greens knock our Number One off its perch!
2 Comments
Parsley is ok for chickens in small quantities - it's the issue of moderation .... it probably wouldn't be good for us eating 2kg of parsley either. We have included parsley in our mix because it is high in iron and because it... attracts slugs and small flying insects that then provide extra nutrition for the lucky chickens who eat them. Parsley has a long taproot and can also bring nutrients up from deep in the soil . The parsley we have chosen for this mix is a very mild parsley with low concentrations of essential oils - compared with other types of parsley which are highly flavoured for culinary use, and this makes it more palatable for the chickens too.