Integrating Chickens into Backyard Orchards

Can you successfully mix fruit trees and chickens?

Over the years I’ve learnt a lot about chickens and I’ve learnt a lot about fruit trees. Here’s what I know about putting the two together.

Why are chickens so good in the orchard?

Chickens are great at pest control. They are particularly good at foraging in the soil for pupating larvae of pests such as codling moth and Queensland fruit fly. This can help to break the pest’s life cycle. Chickens will also make a tidy meal of all sorts of other protein-rich visitors to your garden. I’ve even seen them fighting over mice. Unfortunately, they don’t like the taste of harlequin bugs – apparently you’ll need guinea fowl for controlling those.

Chicken manure acts as a natural fertiliser for your orchard, but be careful not to overdo it or you risk ending up with enormous and unmanageable trees – remember my neglected but productive pear tree?

I have plenty of plants growing under my fruit trees (more on what I’ve planted and some alternative options here). At certain times of the year, the space can become a bit of a jungle. I use chickens to tame the jungle rather than weeding it myself.

Chickens also provide the obvious benefits of eggs and plenty of entertainment.

Why do chickens insist on all laying in the one nest box, when there’s a perfectly good empty one right next door?

Time flies when you’re watching chickens. (That would be a great pun, if only chickens were better fliers.)

You can have too much of a good thing