What to do the Dandelions

Oh, what to do with these weeds?  

We have so many of them it looks like a 

fairy wand convention in the backyard. We could eat them but I am not ready for that yet. 

Compost them , we have and we have way to many.  I remember Robert saying something about feeding our chickens the leaves of the plant.  Well the chickens get lots of greens, kale, collard greens, broccoli and lettuce and cabbage cores so why not dandelions.

Dandelions in the yard

A big handful of food

Dandelions by the handful

 Going over the lawn on my hands and knees pulling up these little guys, dandelions have a very long tap root that is hard to jut pull out.  I did my best. After just a few square feet I had my hands full of good yummy dandelions.  I was so hoping the chickens would love this idea.

Here chikies

 As I walked closer to the coop the girls all came out and were very happy to see me and what I had brought to them.  Robert was right the girls love, love, love the dandelions.

 They ate all the leaves roots but not the flowers, they will make good compost.  So if you have chickens you have a natural food garbage disposal.  They can eat almost anything.  

No meat or fats.  Raw vegetables, pasta, and fruit.  You can even teach your chickens to recognize a cantaloupe as a whole melon and they will peck at it and eat it. 

A customer of ours brought me Watermelon rinds to feed to the chickens. They would feed there chickens the rinds when he was a kid.