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When I was 7 years old my grandmother had Geese in her strawberry patch. There was a fence to keep the geese in. Geese would eat anything green but not the strawberry plants.

What about Guineas? My father use to say, Guineas will eat every bug in the garden even fleas and ticks in the grass.

Does anyone have chickens? Are they ok to have in the garden?

I know that chickens like to dig in the soil, they push it with feet. So anything small you plant in the garden gets dig out by them. We always kept them away from garden. We kept all the animals away for that matter.

That's interesting to hear about your grandma and the geese. I have chickens and they will attack a garden if given the chance. They love digging and eating veggies. They might be useful to have in a garden at the end of the growing season --- eating the leftovers, destroying weeds and adding some fertilizer.

Chickens are good at eating insects, worms, beetles and slugs. When the chickens were around the only place you could find a slug or snail was under a pot where they could not get to them. But they climbed on everything and got up on the mist bench and ate the seedlings. They were particularly fond of lettuce. We had to cover seedlings on the mist bench with a wire cage. The birds also liked to nest in trees and and under thick foliage. I don't know about fleas but chickens take dirt baths and they have mites. Hens don't roam unless there is a rooster around. The roosters fight and try to steal each others harems and territory. P.S. These are feral jungle fowl. Most of them were fighting chickens that the owners let loose. The roosters could usually be picked up but the hens were wild.

I started releasing my chickens to forage about an hour, late each day. They finally found the garden. Stripped most anything green. Stripped the strawberry plants of their leaves. So IMO not a very good fit. My chickens have about a quarter acre fenced and for now that is where they will stay. Later I'll open up another quarter acre of so, but they will not be allowed into the garden area again.

My grandmother use to say, chickens scratch looking for small rocks to eat. Watch a chicken when it scratches it will always take a step back to look at the scratched spot then scratch again step back and look again they do this all day. Chickens eat rocks to make egg shells. Grandmother always threw her egg shells out the back door for the chickens to eat. Grandmother use to bust lime stone rock in small pieces with a hammer the chickens would eat it. Sometimes she bought white rock chips at the feed store for the chickens to eat. Chickens won't lay eggs if they can't eat enough rocks to make shells.

Chickens eat bits of rock and grit, which stays in their crop.



Chickens don't have any teeth, so having grit in the crop is how they break their food down to manageable size for the rest of the digestive system to deal with.

Doesn't have much to do with eggshells, which are calcium. Much of the grit / pebbles they eat for their crop wouldn't have calcium. So the egg shells formation and the digestive system are separate processes. Calcium, provided commonly from oyster shell, does strengthen the egg, but doesn't help break up the food - it would be like chewing with soft chalk teeth. Limestone rock would be a calcium source, but I don't know if they can digest it down to be usable calcium for their reproductive system. The reproductive system being a completely separate tube from the digestive system tube, the only way calcium gets to it is through the blood stream.

Shell grit is what is needed for the hens to lay eggs with healthy shells.
Our chickens are only in the garden if they have managed to get out, lol. We have 6 Light Sussex pullets separate from the main flock, as they are not big enough yet to integrate. Those little buggers always find ways to escape their temporary home.
We keep our girls in a run approximately 10 metres x 5 metres, but I am in the process of enlarging it before the young ones are introduced. Their run is in the corner of the yard, where both neighbours can throw their scraps and mowed grass over the fence.

Back to the original question, are guinea fowls ok in the garden, or will they destroy plants like chickens?