Any help, my hens are eating the siding off my house!!

My cockatiels love eating grout but i think chickens would be detered.

Another barrier option might be garden edging? Like those short half logs joined in a line, not sure if it would be tall enough.

Good Luck

I have 4 RIRs, about 8 months old. They, too are EATING MY HOUSE!!

At first I thought they were just finding moss or ants, but it's winter here in Maine, FREEZING and there's certainly no bugs around.

I sprayed some bitter apple spray for dogs...did not deter them a bit.

I knock on the window everytime I hear them, and they just look up, like "hey, just us here, pecking away, thanks for the hello though..." and go right back to pecking my siding.

They have plenty of treats throughout the day and access to their crumble and water too, so they're not exactly starving, even though the ground is well frozen and perhaps their foraging isn't the big yield as it is in the summer...








I also have the house professionally sprayed for bugs, etc. annually (for past 12 years), so I'm not thinking they're actually finding any bugs or anything. At this point I'm thinking we're going to have to put a mudboard along the bottom of our siding, but I'm hoping they won't just start destroying that too! Any ideas??

Okay, we are starting Operation Keep Chickens Away From The House today!! I will post pictures of what we are doing and hopefully it will help you as well HeyMama! (Strangely enough our little Dominique girls are about the same age as your RIRs)
I thought our birds might be bored as well because, though it doesn't get as cold here in Tucson as back east, there are still less critters for them to snack on. I will update with the photos as soon as possible!!
Something I already know, don't try to fix the cracks with wood glue. Furbush literally attacked the glue bottle to get to it after she got a taste! (We got nontoxic glue just in case this would happen and a good thing we did too.)
I will get back to you all with the photos of our solutions very soon!
In the mean time here is Furbush in her Christmas wear...(she is a very, VERY special lady and if she is going to eat my house I can dress her up however I wish.)

In advance I apologize for the long post.
Okay here is what we finally came up with. I'm sure any large fencing or barrier would work perfectly, but we didn't want to spend the money or have some sort of fencing along the whole length of our house. I was sitting and thought to myself that I wasn't trying to keep the chickens out of an area so much as I was trying to keep them away from a wall. Pretty obvious thought, but in that thought I came up with a solution that seems to be working extremely well for how simple it is.
I wondered if I got short, garden fencing and put it far enough away from the house the chickens wouldn't be able to stretch and peck the siding, BUT CLOSE enough to the house they wouldn't have room behind the short fencing to jump over and land. That was the key, to get it close enough to the house they would simply jump up and smack the house, but far enough away they couldn't reach through or over to peck the house!

This is what we came up with. The chickens try to stick their heads through and eat the siding, but they cannot reach. They seem to be too confused by the thin wire fencing and the proximity of the fence to the side of the house. They run into it, but have not been able to fly over because they will fly right into the side of the house!! This is perfect for our problem! We didn't have to pay for large fencing or stakes to put that fencing into the ground.

In a perfect world I would have put this 5 inches closer to the house, but this side of the yard is literally solid rock under only a quarter an inch of top soil. We put this fencing where ever the pick ax could break up the rock enough to put the wire in. (This yard had not one living plant in it when we moved in. It used to be full of old junker cars and trash. It has been a real work in progress) Furbush jumped into this once, couldn't get back out and panicked. I had to rescue her, pull her head out of the fencing, and she has not tried to get back in again. If it was as close to the house as the other side she wouldn't have had room to jump over it at all.

They will try to stick their head through the fencing, but no more than that. It has been up for a few days now and no more loud pecking and eating of siding along the side of the house. (I cannot stress this enough it must be JUST FAR ENOUGH from the house they cannot reach through or over it to the house, but CLOSE ENOUGH to the house they won't have space to land between it and the wall.) It was very cost effective, we got 40ft of this little wire, garden fencing for $20 at Lowes. It isn't a blaring, intrusive barrier either!
All this still left the problem of them pecking the siding over the concrete patio. So my husband got cheap wood at Lowes and we built a large, 6.5 foot flower box!

We built the back higher than the front and have it close enough to the house they won't be able to roost on the back. It over hangs the corner of the patio door to protect it. I do have the advantage of being able to plant cacti in the bottom of the box, which I will be doing. They have left all the cacti alone we have planted so far, for that matter they don't mess with the Sage bushes either, my flowers did not fair as well. We have decided desert plants in the backyard, all the flowers in the front yard. All the supplies for this cost around $28. I think it is cute as a button for something we just threw together. The lady birds helped us build it, much to my husband's distraction.

Checking out the supplies for quality I'm sure.

"We're not in the way at all!"

I hope this solution will be able to help someone else out as well if they ever have an issue like this. Physical barriers seem to be the only way to stop the silly birds, but get creative with it! Thanks everyone for your input!!!

Fantastic, so glad you were able to come up with a solution for these adorable girls (I LOVED the christmas dress up lol)

My girls like to be in on the action similar to yours when it comes tohome improvements gardening, particularly Ruby who always wants to be in the thick of things...



"A hole, for me!!!! You shouldn't have "

Nevermind..got ahead of myself.

Grace11 said:

I dont know if you intended to spell that word that way, but I'm gonna giggle over that a loooong time.

You may have to put up some type of fencing, maybe even electric net or something else and start growing things ON the fencing to keep the chickies away, then the fencing is hidden..... maybe a lot of cactus will keep them away. I wouldnt recommend jumping cholla, though. I saw a animal show with a cat that had gotten chased into a patch of that stuff and it made you cry the cat was so covered in the spines....

Click to expand...

Yes, I meant to spell adorable, adorkable! We are nerdy people and we have been calling each other adorkable since college (Well, mostly I call him that and he just pushes down his glasses and stares)...because we are that dorky! ^^

As for the small garden fencing UPDATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
After almost two weeks the haven't even tried to jump over the little fencing. They are no longer pecking the house at all! We have repainted all the areas they messed up and life is good here in the desert again. We ARE going to plant cacti in the planter box my husband made, but no not jumping cholla! Funny story about jumping cholla. We live out of the city and we love to go hiking. When we take the dog hiking he is pretty good. He avoids every other cactus BUT THE JUMPING CHOLLA! As soon as he seems them (and there are a lot on some of the trails) he run right to them. It makes the hikes interesting to say the least. I have only ever had jumping cholla stuck on tip of my shoes and not my skin so far! Here is hoping it stays that way!
We actually do have cholla planted in the back of the yard, but it is a different variety. They tend to leave it and the other cacti alone.
So, the crisis of the house eating is over! They have, however developed a rather cute habit the last few days. We have a broom we keep on the patio to sweep away their..you know poopoos, as they like to hang on the patio and watch me cook in the kitchen. Now, I don't know if chickens see colors, but since we moved the red and black broom to the backyard they have started to nussle up against it, groom it, and generally just hang around the broom! They love to snuggle up against it when I let them out of the run. I can move it and they still go to the broom and huggles on up! I don't have the heart to take their broom friend away from them. Do chickens get attached to objects?

They get up when they see me coming. They think I have treats, but there they are with their broomy!

They love their broomy! I took away their siding. So, I guess they had to develop another bizarre habit. Silly lady birds! They do make me smile though!
I will say I have discovered chickens to be a delight to own and a constant source of amusement and inspiration.

Here is a tile ( I love using found objects) I painted the other day. I call it Plouffe and Flower! ^^

I love your tile painting! All it is missing is a broom

I have only had my girls for a year and I noticed this spring that they are also eating my siding off the back of my house. I will have to put up a fence soon Oh' and a broom. hahaha Thanks for the advise. Those stinkers