Help!!! My Chickens Are Eating My Garden!!!!

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Best of luck, I fence off my gardens. I personally don't clip wings, but rarely have problems with the birds hopping over a 3 foot fence to get to the goods... and in some cases... just 18 inches of fence. However, when a stray dog showed up and wanted to play, they didn't hesitate to fly up to the roof of the house....
 
I'm new at chickens myself, but I've watched my friend's free-range chickens eat everything in her yard. She's finishing a huge, covered run attached to a henhouse large enough for a horse or two… otherwise, she wouldn't be able to keep anything that bloomed or looked like you'd want it on your salad. You may have to either cage your chicks or cage your garden. My RI Reds are just beginning to figure out they can fly, so covered-coop-time is near…I'd really like to be able to eat out of my garden this year!
 
I've had the same issue with my garden--My 3 leghorn and 1 Americauna hens are really good rototillers and snail killers. They also love to dig huge wallows in the ground, paying no attention to whatever is planted next to them. My solution--they got to free range over the winter--I don't garden then and don't care what they do, but over spring/summer they are penned except for short, supervised "recesses" while I'm cleaning their pen or moving their ark. My ark is 5x8 with wire on top, so they have room to roam around outside without killing everything in sight.
 
Me & my hens had to have a talk last night. They weren't eating the veggies, they were walking all over them looking for tasty bugs. Crushed some lettuce plants
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DH may put netting around the beds for a few days, just until the plants get big enough for the birds to want to go around them. I definitely want them eating bugs, though. I have slugs and black widows...

DH freaked out later as they dust-bathed in a hole he's filled with fresh dirt (our yard is soooo not level!).
 
My chickens are soooo happy at the moment! My Dear Darling Grass Obsessed Husband decided to pull up all of our St Augustine grass and replace it with Zoisa! The lawn contractor came last Friday to remove all of the grass and trench for a new irrigation system. They are in dirt heaven!!! Not only that, but there are deep trenches to look for bugs in. The Lawn guy is a little upset because he has to keep re-digging the irrigation trenches!! He hehehhhe! It is so much fun watching them go in and out of the trenches! They will be so happy until the grass comes next week!

My Husband will be sooooooo upset if they ruin the new grass! Does anyone know if Zoisia holds up well with chickens???

Maybe now they won’t mind being banished! I have a sinking suspision that they ate all of my neighbor’s special ginger... ooops! I don't want to banish them but maybe a good solid wing clipping is in order.
 
Out of 18 spoiled rotten hens, only one of mine thinks she is a bird and will fly over short or tall fences. Yesterday my Cleopatra, an EE, was found in the garden over the 5 foot fence. We have learned that for us in chicken fencing the key is to not have a solid top wire for her to land on. We put up another two feet of bird netting on top and that does the trick. Her MO is that she likes to land on top and then fly down, if she can't see a wire to land on she won't fly over a taller fence. Her sister EE Barbra doesn't try to fly, and weighs a lot less due to less muscle. Cleopatra follows me around the homestead like a dog and logs several miles a day!
 
I have black bird cages over my flower bed. And a 5 foot fence to keep them out of the veggie patch. The ducks are far worse on the seedlings right now. They adored the blue and white panseys as a snack. My tomatos, peppers and egg plants are going in with hot caps/plastic milk jugs to keep the them off of them for a bit. I guess if it keeps out the deer and ground hogs will keep them at bay too.
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New to this and adore my destructive girls hate to clip their wings or pen them but I'm out of options have a four ft fence around my garden and still they get in and eat every ripe tomatoe any suggestions on proper wing clipping???
 
Have you ever considered putting up bird netting around it but also putting... some rope such as baler twine around the top of it to prevent them from landing in it... at my farm we did the same thing but we did this along there enclosure so that we would not have to chase them around at night to put them in the barn.
 

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