chickens and gardens?

[Bonnie L]

A 6' deer fence reinforced with chicken wire on the bottom part. Works great!

[Bonnie L]

How did my reply - which should have been #14 - end up first?
Am I time traveling?

[ethan]

How do yall keep chickens out of your garden? I've got some of that "poultry netting" which is basically plastic chicken wire but it's only about 3' high. Do you think that will be enough?

[BlackWillowFarm]

Well....I'm 'bout to shoot my chickens with my .22 rifle. I can't keep 'em out of my garden. I put a plastic fence around it, but they figured out how to push their way in and they are wrecking my garden! Today they wiped out a whole row of onions. The peas don't stand a chance and the strawberries aren't ripe yet, but.....

And, that's my small garden! My big garden is far away, but I'm sure they'll find it about the time the tomatoes are ripe.

Bang, bang.....

[Wolf mom]

I put up 3 ft chicken wire in an "L" shape with bottom part on the ground. It works for rabbits, maybe chickens.

How about trimming their wing feathers so they can't fly like they trim parrots wings? I keep my chickens safe in a fenced yard.

My issue is that my big dog has figured it's easy to jump the fence & likes to lay in the garden rows.

Challenges keep coming..........

[ethan]

we keep them in a portable coop but they're gettin old and we're about to get some chicks, won't be room for all of them. I just as soon see them in a pot, boiling with some dumplings! But our two daughters have grown attatched and don't see that happening so we've been thinking about letting them range on our place. We let them out of the coop when we're working in the yard and they haven't offered to bother the garden as of yet, but you know how that goes!

[chickenista]

I have used the plastic chicken wire stuff for years.. the one with the square openings. It works great. I also use it to pen my chicks.

[willow_girl]

What you'll lose in produce is minimal compared to the good they'll do in eating up all the harmful insects ...

I'm wishing I had chickens now; slugs and Japanese beetles, ARGHHH!

[GoldenMom]

I use 18 or 24" chicken wire (I can't remember how high it is, but I can step over it pretty easily). It works great. I've yet to have a chicken, duck, turkey or goose test it hard enough to find a way in (and my garden is very near where the chickens range).

[Ross]

Wire comes in 12 gauge so does shotgun shells. Coincidence? I think not. Birds in my veggies................ not in this or any post mortal life.

[U-Turn]

We have 2' chicken wire around our garden. They don't get in. They'll walk the perimeter, looking for an opening, but they won't go over. I've heard that in chicken thinking, they'll fly over a higher fence to get OUT of an enclosure, but it only takes a little to keep them from getting IN to an enclosure. Don't know if it's fact, but it's been my experience.

[Callieslamb]

Mine can get over a 4 foot fence. How much damage they do will depend on the size of the garden and the number of chickens.

[Kstornado11]

Mine stay out of mine w/ only regular chicken wire,a bit over knee high. They have 1 clipped wing,but we also are in the middle of the woods where there is plenty of other vegetation to eat. I encourage my guineas into the garden,as they don't bother w/ the plants & go right for the bugs!

[Macybaby]

Mine can easily clear a 6 foot fence, but they stay out of the garden and it's only got a 3' fence around most of it (rest is 4').

Mine free range, and so far they are staying out of the garden. They reconginze the straw and now that it had good stuff in it, but so far they only walk the perimeter and then go some place else. Mine are EE and rather light so they can get quite a bit of air when they want to. I've had better luck with heavy hens not flying much.

I won't let my chickens in the garden. They have turned whole rows into dust baths in the past, and that is where I've had the most damage. They killed many of my perennial flowers by digging them up while after insects or creating dust wallows.

I also mulch heavy, and they love scratching around and that disturbs tender seedlings. Might not be a problem once the plants are well established. The only thing worse were the turkeys, they just walked over everything and killed most that way. But I don't think I've ever had any plants killed by the chickens eating them.

Cathy

[ethan]

Thanks for all the info! I think I'm gonna try the 3' plastic fence I got. We've only got 4 raised beds, but they are heavily planted and everything is coming along great, I'd hate to loose a bunch of veggies!

[mooman]

What you'll lose in produce is minimal compared to the good they'll do in eating up all the harmful insects ...

I'm wishing I had chickens now; slugs and Japanese beetles, ARGHHH!

lol....no offense, but chickens will destroy a garden. Maybe if you were not using any mulch, and excluded them the minute things started to ripen......maybe.

One tomatoe off of each plant is lost produce. Every tomatoe on every plant having one bite taken out of it is a disaster. The time to put the chickens in the garden is after production when they can go after overwintering insects in the mulch.

[Pouncer]

Mine can easily clear the four foot chicken wire I have around my patch. Or, they just fly up to the top rail of the horse panels and glide in from there. They had a grand old time this spring, scratching around, until it was time to plant. Now, they are in a chain link enclosure until after harvest. Not happy birds, trust me. But, I do give them a handful of greens every day out of pity.

In my case, even when the plants get good sized, they will still have a feast in there despite the black plastic mulch. Don't listen to my hub who swore they "wouldn't like walking on the plastic and they'll stay out" Not! That was last years' experience.

[pattypenny]

If a chicken can get into the garden they will wreck it. When I was a girl it was my job to keep the chickens out of our garden, the chicken free ranged and we didn't have fence around the garden.The garden and the chickens were both important in our lives and Dad put me to guarding the garden. One hot July day I was chasing this white rock hen and she would dart over to another row. I lost my temper and threw a rock at the hen knocking her out cold. I was crying Oh mama I killed the hen! Well she got up and moved out of the garden. I was glad because we needed those eggs.
I think it would be easier to pen the chickens than to build a fence that would turn a hen. They will go over or under about any fence you have. They just keep trying until they manage to get in.
I can tell you chickens love tomatoes and will peck a hole in every ripe tomato if they can get in.

[JohnL751]

When I was a little kid about fifty years ago, mom had three hens that would come up and hang out at the garden gate and many times mom sent me to let them into the garden. None of the other chickens ever tryed to get into the garden.

[duckidaho]

I don't know how long this will work, but we have some fencing that keeps our chickens away from the garden-but they can get over or around if they want to. They just seem to prefer to wander around other places. We haven't lost much in the garden - YET. Fencing our garden is impracticle (5500 sq. ft.). Don't really feel much like fencing the chickens either. We'll see if this plan works...