bears and chickens

[cristineintahoe]

We started our backyard chickens inside our house, and when they were ready, we introduced them into a very solid outgrown wood playhouse which latches, and is surrounded by a chicken run fence 6' tall and latches, and is surrounded by our regular backyard fence. 9 of 10 chickens were massacred by a bear 3 days ago. It was terrible! Our lone chicken wont stop calling for her flock and we were only able to find new babies. We got two, and the survivor, only 3 months old, is attacking them, so there are separated, but in the same space. They are currently living in our house!!!! This is not okay!!! Electric fence? Roof topped run? We love our chickens, I am heartbreaking, but also the self sustainability card is important to me and my family, any ideas?!! Please help!

 

[SilkieHenHoney]

I know someone who puts electric fence around their cows & honeybees to keep bears out.

 

[aart]

How'd it get in....any pics of the damage to the fence and coop?
Would be a great resource for others that live in bear country.

From all I've read a very hot electric fence is about the only real bear deterrent.
Put it up, make sure it good and charged/grounded, then lay some strips of raw bacon over the wires to make sure they touch it with their bare noses/mouths.

Also do some reading:
advanced search>titles only>bears

 

[Blammmo]

x2 on the electric fence

 

[chickienuggers]

Outside our coop, in addition to the game cam, we put a motion activated flood light that is double sockets, and in one socket (my ingenious hubby came up with this) instead of a light bulb he put a screw-in outlet and plugged in an extension cord into it and hung a flood light over our bed so that when the bear came back the light came on and we were woken up by the light. This will only work if your chickens are in the hen house and not able to come out into the run cuz they will set off the light and you won't get to sleep all night. Then you can shoo the bear off or what ever you plan to do with it.

I love when my husband comes up with these ingenious plans! It worked so well, we caught the bear red handed with his head in the run and his bottom sticking out the back! Bad bear!!!!

 

[chickienuggers]

Oh yeah, forgot to say that we went to the farm supply store and bought a solar powered electric fence.... I thought it wouldn't be very strong but it powers up to 30 miles of fencing. We are going to wrap it around the hen house and the run 3 or 4 times. The farm store guy swears by it...... It was pricey but when you look at what you spent on buying your chicks, feeding them and building the coop, it is a worthy investment. We spent like almost 200 bucks on ours. Look on Amazon, they have better prices usually.