Comfrey

[rowbow4]

Does anyone feed their chickens comfrey leaves, it is supposed to be beneficial to livestock and the soil?

 

[MrsBiscuit]

I haven't fed it to the chooks, isn't it slightly hairy? If so, I would have thought that naturally they would ignore it, my observations on the range have been that they love either 'juicy' things like sorrel or seedheads. However, you can make comfrey tea which is very good as an organic fertiliser, albeit a bit stinky during the making. My previous garden was full of the stuff, its quite rampant. I believe you can also make a different sort of comfrey tea for humans!

 

[Marigold]

I looide up 'Comfrey - side effects' and it seems there is the possibility of liver damage if taken internally. See https://www.emedicinehealth.com/drug-comfrey/article_em.htm and other articles if you google it.
Chickens are very good at avoiding plants which would be harmful to them, but I can't see that there would be any point in feeding this to them on purpose, when there are so many other harmless sources of greenstuff which they would enjoy.

 

[Kippy]

I have comfrey in my garden, hens have never been interested in it, unlike my geraniums which appear to be the hen equivalent of a bar of Dairy Milk lol.

 

[LadyA]

I know that if you roughly chop comfrey leaves and leave them to rot down in a bucket of water, they make a fabulous feed for veg and plants. And if you lay the leaves out around your plot, snails are supposed to go for them first, rather than your produce, although I've never tried that.

 

[chrismahon]

You can use nettle leaves for feed the same way LadyA.

 

[Icemaiden]

Going off topic a bit, if you have horsetail / marestail growing as a weed in your garden, stew some in some water, let it cool & spray the liquid onto your rose bushes. It's great for getting rid of blackspot.

 

[bigyetiman]

The field opposite us has a lot of mares tail growing around the edges. I will try that for black spot. Thanks Icemaiden

 

[happy hen]

I put freshly picked comfrey leaves around my tomatoes in the greenhout, within a week they've rotted down and disappeared. Last year I did it weekly instead of tomato feed ....worked for me, I don't think the tomato harvest suffered and it's not as smelly as the dreaded comfrey tea ?