What Do Chickens and Tomato Plants Have in Common?

You wouldn’t think that chickens and tomato plants have much in common. But over the years of growing both, I’ve seen several parallels. Some of the comparisons pertain to any living thing, but that doesn’t make them any less interesting. Here are 10 of the commonalities I find most striking:

Chickens and tomato plants both come in heirloom types.

Heirloom chickens and heirloom tomato plants both:

• Have been around for decades.
• Are valued for genetic diversity.
• Are not hybrid, therefore breed true.

Some types are more tolerant of adverse conditions.

Tolerance	Chicken Example	Tomato Example
Cold tolerant	Chantecler	Moskvich
Heat tolerant	Sumatra	Heatmaster
Disease resistant	Fayoumi	Better Boy
Short day	Buckeye	Early Girl

Grown chickens and mature tomato vines produce fruit.

Chickens lay eggs. Tomato vines produce, well, tomatoes. To produce, both require adequate care that includes sufficient water and proper nutrition. And, as both age, production gradually declines.

Photoperiod triggers production.

Photoperiod refers to the percent of daylight versus the percent of darkness in a day. Increasing day length triggers both hens and tomato plants to enter their reproductive phase.

Hens go broody in the spring, when fertility is highest. In spring breeders are strongest and healthiest, therefore their eggs produce the healthiest chicks. And the weather is starting to warm up, but is still cool enough to discourage chickhood diseases.

Tomato seeds sprout in spring, when increasing day length indicates that environmental conditions, including temperature and moisture, are favorable for growth. Germination as days lengthen also ensures adequate light for photosythesis.

Not incidentally, photoperiod is a better term here than day length, because the amount of darkness is what triggers reproduction, not the amount of daylight. And different chicken breeds, like different tomato cultivars, have varying photoperiod requirements for optimal reproduction and growth.

Chickens and tomato plants need their zzzs.

Chickens and tomato plants both need a minimum of 8 hours of restful darkness to remain healthy and productive.

Hens and tomatoes produce fruit without a male.

Just as hens produce eggs without a rooster, each tomato blossom is capable of producing fruit. However, while tomatoes don’t need pollination in order reproduce via seed, hens need a rooster in order for their eggs to be fertile and hatch.

Baby chicks and tomato seedlings need coddling.

Baby chicks and tomato seedlings both need a certain amount of coddling to successfully get them through their first few weeks. Baby chicks that aren’t hatched by a mama hen are started in a brooder. Tomato seedlings that don’t sprout from last year’s fallen fruit are more often started in nursery flats.

Chickens and tomato plants are both subject to non-transmissible environmental issues.

Chickens and tomato plants both can suffer from mismanagement. For example, both experience stress from overcrowding, insufficient water, or inadequate nutrition. Although these issues are not diseases that are transmissible from one individual to another, the same issue can affect several individuals or the whole group.

Both are subject to a large number of preventable diseases.

I won’t go into the long lists of preventable diseases of chickens or tomato plants. For chicken diseases, The Chicken Health Handbook pretty much covers them all. For diseases of tomato plants see: 22 Tomato Diseases: Identification, Treatment and Prevention.

For both chickens and tomato plants, practicing good biosecurity goes a long way toward preventing transmissible diseases. Biosecurity for both includes:

• Starting with disease-free stock
• Providing plenty of space to avoid overcrowding
• Managing disease vectors
• Practicing pasture/crop rotation

Chickens and tomatoes love each other.

Chickens love tomatoes. Not the plants (which are toxic), but the fruit. Tomatoes love chickens, or at least well composted chicken poop.

And I love both chickens and tomatoes! Don’t you?