Free Range girls in my garden & landscape

[chickngal98]

My girls are free range and love, love, love the wide open areas. Unfortunately, the girls love my landscaping and rocks too. I am constantly sweeping rocks back into the landscaping. Is there such a thing as a "deterrent" (besides, penning the ladies back up) that anyone has used? I don't want to harm the girls, just want to turn their curiousity to something else. Thanks for the advice!

 

[Den in Penn]

Just three choices, confine them to the coop/run, fences, give up on low maintenance landscaping.

 

[bj taylor]

i think you're only choices are to fence your chickens or fence your landscape. i have ornamental fencing around the areas i need to keep them out of. i admit my place is fenced and cross fenced. if you find a better solution - post it. i need it.

 

[WalkingOnSunshine]

As others have said, you either have to fence the chickens into a run or pasture, or out of your garden. There are no other options. Chickens are destructive beasties, and will rip up a landscape so fast your head will spin.

Ours are confined to a 75' x 125' pasture, otherwise they decimate my garden, then head for the neighbor's. Eek!

 

[cary 1973]

what works for me in my garden is I have a roll of chicken wire and for each plant i make a chicken wire fence, also on the bell pepers i have large wood bark around them so the girls cant scrach the ground for the most part the girls have lost intrest in these garden beds, Now I have a small garden and 4 chickens but this works for me hope it helps


My bell peper plants with chicken wire around it the top is open so they can grow, last year once full grown teh chickens really did not mess with plants to much other then the big green catapillers on the lives they would eat them and a few leaves were pecked here and there but cant say if it was the chickens or the big green bugs


this is my squash plants and what i did is made a wagon covering with chicken wire and once they get big enough i will undu this as last year the girls never messed with the squash plants when they were full grown. finger cross same happens this year

 

[chickngal98]

Thanks for the ideas!