How tall should a fence be?

[QuailMan6666]

I want to start free ranging my hens in the future, but I have to build a fence with a door around my prized orchids so that they wont eat them. Would a 4ft or 5ft tall fence by adequate enough to protect the orchids from my chickens?

 

[No Coop No Problem]

Depends on the breed of chickens. Heavy production breeds won't hop a 3' fence here, but athletic chickens jump over them casually

 

[KyCoop]

I've had chickens I could keep contained with nothing more than a water hose on the ground and I've had girls that could clear a 6ft fence. You should be fine with a 5ft fence and little training by making another area of the yard more appealing.

 

[StinkyAcres]

I think 4 or 5 feet should be plenty high. Just make sure it doesn't have a solid top rail - they aren't as inclined to fly to the top if it's only thin wire. My chickens only jump high fences if they see something on the other side they think is much better than what they have inside (e.g. a bird feeder with sunflower seeds or lush grass). I doubt they would be that interested in orchids, but I could be wrong.

 

[StinkyAcres]

I think 4 or 5 feet should be plenty high. Just make sure it doesn't have a solid top rail - they aren't as inclined to fly to the top if it's only thin wire. My chickens only jump high fences if they see something on the other side they think is much better than what they have inside (e.g. a bird feeder with sunflower seeds or lush grass). I doubt they would be that interested in orchids, but I could be wrong.

By the way, my chicken pen fence is less than 3 feet high and my Brahmas have never flown over the fence. My EEs have done it a few times when they've seen wild birds dropping seeds from the feeders. I now have multiple pens beside each other so there are multiple layers of fence.

 

[Poppy Putentake]

This partly depends on how dire the situation would be if they did hop the fence (i.e. how valuablethe plants are and whether the birds would ignore the them anyway or imediately tear them apart. On the other hand, since you don''t need "predator-proof", only "chicken proof", you could use chicken wire or other materials that wouldn't pass for keeping the birds themselves safe.