There is wisdom in this; indeed, raising chickens and vegetables in the same household is like hiring a shepherd who's also part time werewolf. I will not say it can't be done, but one would be well-advised to think twice before attempting it.
Letting chickens out after putting in seed, for example, is nothing short of catastrophic. Chickens have very limited means of entertaining themselves and hunting and digging out every last kernel of Silver Queen you've laboriously installed into the soil is for them the greatest sport imaginable. They are also known to wreak havok with tender sprouts. Even when the plant is of a certain size, and they no longer show an interest in it as such, they will discover a veritable congregation of worms gathered around the root ball, and will dig and scratch until the okra plant, or whatever, is felled and lying on the ground.
And the thought of what they would do to the vegetables themselves makes each particular hair to stand on end, like quills upon the fretful porpentine. I have seen with my own eyes a chicken gaze at me with an expression of such concentrated innocence, you could have squeezed it into a glass for juice, whistling a carefree tune between its beak, observing the butterflies dart hither and yon, as if nothing could be further from her mind than ravaging the plump tomato and mere eighteen inches beyond her left shoulder, meanwhile, when she thought I wasn't looking stretching out with one leg, towards the plant, a red orb hanging trembling among the verdure, sidling inch by inch ever closer... ever closer. There's a line about the price of freedom being eternal vigilance and thus it is with chickens and vegetables.
You with the feathers, yeah, you, I'm talking to you. I got my eye on you.
Be warned.
