Cabbage thief

I was busy planting cabbages yesterday morning, watched very closely by Amber. She would squak every now and again as if to get my attention. After planting two neat rows and placing collars round each cabbage I went down the road to have Sunday lunch with my sister.
On my return I saw Amber coming out from under the blackcurrant bushes with soil covered beak. She had hopped over the fence as soon as my back was turned and taken a few bites/pecks out of the cabbages, ripped away some collars and dug two large holes in the plot.
She looked suitably guilty and all I could do was laugh. More that likely they will get the odd cabbage or two once they grow but obviously she couldn't wait.

Your chooks will appreciate a cabbage (or even half or quarter depending on the size of your flock) to peck at.  I grow a variety of greens of all kinds to keep my girls happy but I feed them to them rather than let them loose in the brassica patch    Mind you they will always go where you don't want them to, sometimes with disastrous results.  I've given up trying to make their run look nice with sunflowers and pansies 

Before I gave up trying to grow veggies with free ranging chooks, (it was a losing battle), I planted a row of onions, got to the end of the row and turned round to survey my hard work only to find Henrietta had been going along behind me digging them all back up! I now have an allotment and their new run is where the veggie patch was.

If there were ever opportunists, its hens!  Nothing is out of bounds!

They are good for clearing out slugs and bugs over winter in a patch that you want to plant