Bear proofing!?

[Triple Willow]

Bear fencing: http://www.bestbearfence.com/products/beekeepers/bear-fence-kits.htm

 

[cchardwick]

Welcome to bear country! I'm in the middle of a war zone up here in CO as well. I had a bear break in and kill all 45 of my chickens about three years ago. I got three llamas and that took care of the problem for years, at least until last week when a mountain lion jumped in and killed about a dozen of my largest birds. Apparently llamas won't work with lions. So for the past week I've been locking the llamas in my livestock trailer, locking the chickens up in the bear proof coop, and locking my baby calf in the garage. I've just installed an electric fence and put everything back in the round arena.

Here's my security now: I have a round arena that is about a 1/4 acre, surrounded with horse panels and on the outside of the panels I have six foot chain link fence. And on the outside of the chain link I have two strands of electric wire, one about knee high and one about nose high. I bought an 18 joule charge controller, plenty of power for those thick furred critters. I also bought four 'night eyes' blinking lights, not sure how effective they are but everything helps. I also have the three llamas that protect most of the time. I've also decided to lock up the chickens in my bear proof coop every night, that seems to take the food out of the picture since lions and bears usually come around at 3:00 AM or so.

The reward for all of this is that I can run my 100+ chickens in the arena all day long! They are very happy birds!

 

[Triple Willow]

@cchardwick... do you have any pictures of your bear-proof coop and the rest of your setup? I sure would like to see/know how you do it and I'm sure it would help a lot of folks. Sounds like you have it under control. Thanks. Btw, are llamas hard to keep?

 

[scooter147]

And I thought hawks and raccoons were a pain to fend off.

 

[Godiva]

Oh my! That sounds quite something - I hope that does the trick for you Cchardwick! Fortunately for us the bear hasn't been around for weeks so I am hoping that he found better food elsewhere! I am hoping I can hold off until we are settled into a more permanent place before we invest in the electric fence stuff. Unfortunately our landlord who lives on the same property as us has his birds out free ranging all the time and we are not lacking in predators here! It is just a matter of time until something gets them - I am not sure why he even has chickens honestly!? I mean free ranging is fine if you don't have owls, hawks, raccoons, foxes, skunks, bears, mountain lions and of course the occasional stray dog! Just hoping that any predators will go for his birds first - however it seems that many times the folks who really couldn't care less seem to get away with being very lacksadaisical for a long time before anything gets their birds, and the ones (read us) who try to keep our birds safe and healthy get the problems.