How do you keep chickens from flying over the fence ?

[Macis Papa]

How tall is your fence?

 

[azygous]

You can do a lot with inexpensive deer netting. https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/fences-visible-invisible

The objective to getting chickens not to fly up and over a fence is to make the top appear unstable. Chickens need to be sure of a landing at the top. They generally do not fly all the way over a fence, even when it's quite low. If chickens can't see the top of the fence, they will be even less apt to attempt to breech it. The black deer netting fits the bill.

 

[sharunaga]

...

Well- /img/smilies/welcome-byc.gif And I had the same problem though I didn't have such a big space. Really the only thing you can do is cover

 

[sharunaga]

What about a leg bracelet or bracelets that are weighted. Is there such a thing? Not only would they not be able to fly they'd develop muscles!
But seriously, is there such a thing?

 

[Denmarc]

I have 8 hens, 2 6 year olds (buff orp and barred rock) and 2 2 year old cream legbars, we had a low 3 ft fence for the run with the coop and 6 ft fence the length of the back yard on each side with 3.5 ft fence at back of yard those 4 hens Never once tried to fly over

our 4 new hens, 6 months old, have already flown over the 6 ft fence, multiple times, luckily when the neighbors dogs were not out in their yard.

I had to emergently make a hoop aviary covered with Deer net over the original fenced in run area so that I could allow them out of the coop

it makes me sad, because I so enjoyed watching the hens forage in the yard

sigh!

its a work in progress, but at least now I don't worry about the hawks, owls and eagles that tend to roost in the tree in the yard

 

[jab5]

Agree. I put 6" eyebolts on top of each of my posts and strung plastic-coated wire cable through them tightening at the ends with small turnbuckles. They've never flown over since.

 

[ZombieMadHatter]

My heavier birds don't fly much (RIR, Red sexlink, Buff Orpington) but my little bitty Leghorns were escape artists until I clipped their flight feathers from BOTH wings.
Clipping one side is supposed to "throw them off balance" (and didn't work for my Leghorns) but clipping both sides seems to keep them from getting enough "lift" under them. They have to work really hard to get up to my 3ft roost.
My fences are 5ft tall and it's rare that anyone flies out since I clipped them.

My rooster is so heavy that he doesn't EVER fly out so he has all his wing feathers intact.

I have this problem with my roosters. They haven't flown over the fence yet and if they go in the yard fine but I live in an area where my yard is next to the neighbors and I don't want my boys going into THEIR yard (They will kill my birds) I clipped both wings on each bird and found out that they didn't even FLY up to the coop and got on the fence they jumped on the coop (my coop is like 3 1/2 feet tall) like it was nothing. Impressive but not smart. I tried moving the coop it didn't work because it's the middle of winter and I couldn't find another flat area. I'm buying them a new coop next week but I don't want to keep them confined until it comes in. So my problem is how can I keep them off the fence. They can roost on their coop all they want I dont care I just dont want them on the fence because the neighbors will let thwir dogs out while the chickens are out and the dogs already attack the fence and I don't want my roosters dive bombing onto the neighbors yard and attacking their dogs

 

[chickengeorgeto]

Hens don't just take a running start and fly over a fence. As often as not they will go from object to object in an ever upward direction until they can hop down to, as opposed to flying over into the forbidden zone. This means NO dog houses, shrubs, trellis, trampolines or any other object either natural or man made object close enough to your fence to give them a head start at escaping.

 

[ZombieMadHatter]

Hens don't just take a running start and fly over a fence. As often as not they will go from object to object in an ever upward direction until they can hop down to, as opposed to flying over into the forbidden zone. This means NO dog houses, shrubs, trellis, trampolines or any other object either natural or man made object close enough to your fence to give them a head start at escaping.

I found that out with my hens, I couldn't figure out how the one was getting out to the front yard. She found a small opening the first time second time she hopped on the generator and onto the fence. Lol they are clever though

 

[trudyg]

My fence is wire goat fence, so they don't fly over it, but they DO like to fly up and perch on the gate rail and then fly down into the outside yard. Dummies can't do the reverse and get back in. So, what I did, was take those green sticks that you prop up tomato plants with (metal covered in green) and 'wove' them down into the chain link of the gate so that 3' was sticking up above the gate rail. Then I simply wove chicken wire (you could use bird netting) so that the gate height was now 3' higher. I got tired of being careful opening the gate after a week or so, but by then they had learned not to try it anymore.