gardening

[stellarules]

[In dire need of a resaonable solution to keep my chickens from eating my Hostas

 

[Sir Birdaholic]

Hmmmmm........ Aha!! Fence.

 

[TurkeyMountainChickens]

My hostas are inside a nice little fence. It's little, actually - probably only 18 inches of that decorative wrought iron looking fence. It's spiky on top, though, so the chickens can't land on it, and they don't bother thinking to just fly over.

That, and I'm distracting them with my astilbe.

Sadly, it's on the wrong side of the fence!

 

[Kittymomma]

Maybe, and this is just a thought as I haven't actually tried it, put some of those spinning pinwheels here and there on the fence. I bought a couple for my youngest last year and he put them in some of my deck containers, they totally freaked the chickens out when the wind blew. The containers were part of his play zone though and didn't have anything good to eat in them so I'm not sure if it would be enough to keep them away from something tasty.

 

[doodledo]

The only thing to do, dig them up and move them. I dug mine all up and put them where my chickens dont normally go. This year only a few have found them. So I will be digging up or giving away. I did put the green small fence around my 1 plant cause they kept digging it up. That has kept them away and you really cant see it.

 

[HerbiLady]

Are they scratching and eating or just eating? If they're attracted to moist soil where bugs and slugs like to live maybe laying down some chicken wire or hardware cloth would make it unpleasant for them visit that area and scratch around?

Last time I had chickens (years ago!) I tried to "train" them from scratching in the flower beds by the house. I sat ALL DAY LONG with a hose and sprayed them everytime they came there. It would p**s them off and they ran away every time I sprayed them. But, maybe 10 minutes later they forgot all about it and came right back. Didn't work. I ended up drinking way too much beer sitting there all day and the chickens won!

 

[For-The-Love-Of-Chickens]

Bird netting for fruit trees works great and it's cheap. I have a little decorative fence around my flower garden and then tucked the netting in the fence. My lavender and dianthus are still in one piece!