The less desirable fruiting plants.

I find many fruiting plants that don't pass the palatable threshold are high yielding, nutrient dense, generally disease resistant and more importantly to me great food sources for animals like chickens. There are a few things that escape me at the moment but what comes to mind are River Bank Grapes, Russian Olives and Chokecherries.

What other producing plants can make the list for a forage food system?

All those fruits you listed are high yielding, nutrient dense, and generally disease resistant.
I however have no idea if chicken/other animals like them. It is very possible that if you train the 1st batch of animals to eat them then they will train future generation to also eat them

One really great thing about choke cherries is that when they ripen the birds ignore the blueberries. Trap crops for wildlife are great.

My chickens seem to prefer crabapples to regular apples.

I'm encouraging native hawthorn trees to grow around my property, what the possums, raccoons, deer,etc. really like though are the American persimmons and pears.
Anything that falls under those trees is gone within days. Even my dogs like eating the persimmons and pears.

The pear trees were planted by a previous owner, but I'm not much of a pear eater, so I guess that fits "less desirable fruiting plant".

The persimmons are native and form stands of trees.

Nice, I see hawthorn escaped my radar. Did some quick reading and it is a great multipurpose plant to have around. I wonder since chickens have such powerful digestive systems that if the seeds could potentially harm them. Later I will do research on good cultivars for my area.



As for pears, I love a good pear. I have had bad ones from a supermarket and for the longest period considered them an inferior fruit but surprisingly when I was in the Army I had exposure to wonderful finger licking good pears. I dont know where they got it from but that completely changed my mind about pears. Persimmons is definitely a fruit to consider.

I like the Hawthorns mainly because I don't have to plant them, they grow on my property naturally. I just cut out any pines or other small trees nearby so they can thrive more.

As for the fruit, there are generally like five small, hard seeds in the center that fit together in a circle. When I eat the fruit out in the woods, I hold them like a tiny corn cob and gnaw the flesh
of the fruit off the outsides. They taste like apples to me.

I don't know if eating a lot of the seeds may cause a problem for chickens or not.

Yeah, I agree about pears- some types are much better for eating. The type I have are called "cooking pears" around here as that is the best way to use them. Asian pears are generally much softer with thinner skin. (much better for eating out of hand) . Mine taste fine, but I have to peel them with a knife to avoid the heavy, starchy skin.

The wild animals love my pears though. Out of the hundreds of pears on the tree this year, I ate or used maybe 10-15 at the most, all the rest fell to the ground and were eaten by whatever came by.

I've seen possums/ raccoons in my old persimmon trees a number of times.

Persimmons are a great post-frost fruit. Mulberries are a good early fruit here. Blackberries and raspberries will grow in any fenceline or edge if you don't mow them here.

I was originally hesitant to mention mulberry because I find them very palatable. Rethinking on that, I should include this on my list simply because they make fantastic forage for roaming chickens. I remember walking past a huge mulberry tree in a neighborhood and under the canopy were piles of mulberries littering the landscape. I remember thinking to myself that easily a couple hundred chickens could feast on these just from one tree. I imagine it was over 40 years old.