How to Keep Chickens off the Porch?

[MarthaTheRooster]

I mean fence them off the porch and anyplace else that you want to protect.

The porch has a banister around it, maybe I could put a baby gate where on the steps or have hubby build me a gate? Hmm..

 

[Ridgerunner]

It's a wait and see. Some chickens like to roam a lot more than others. It's not just distances but the lay of your terrain that will affect it. Chickens tend to like a place that is shaded so they are cooler and has something over it so they feel safer from flying predators. Whether that is your porch, an outbuilding, or under trees or bushes time will tell.

Chickens can eat stuff growing in the garden. It's aggravating when they take a couple of pecks out of a beautiful ripe tomato and move on. Or eat certain green stuff. They seem to really love stuff just as it is sprouting. They also love to scratch, looking for creepy crawlies. Mulch is especially favored, whether in a veggie garden or a landscaping bed. They are strong scratchers, they can clean off a mulched bed pretty darn fast. Whether this will be a problem for you or not, time will tell.

It might be nothing that you can't live with, but I suggest starting now so you have a plan B, just in case. To me. Plan B means either fence them in or fence them out.

 

[so lucky]

With my previous flock, they had a habit of getting on the back patio, just hanging out in the covered area, especially when it was raining, pooping on everything. I fenced off this area temporarily with 3' chicken wire, which kept all of them but one out, and she just wanted to get in there and use a flower pot for a nest.
I had an azalea bed out under some pine trees where the chickens liked to forage. I used some of that cheap green painted wire fencing (it was only about 18" high once poked in the ground) but that was enough to keep them out. They would mosey along with their head down, looking for bugs, and bump into the fence, then just turn around and go a different direction.
You might want to provide a place for them to hang out, like a picnic table or bench, so they won't be trying to go places you don't want.

 

[Biddybot]

If you don't want your chickens on the porch or in your flowers, you'll have to fence them OUT. Four-foot high 2" poultry netting supported on rebar posts (which are easy to drive into most any soil and also easy to pull out again) works very well to keep even the flyers in or out. The trick is to use netting with thin-enough wire that they can't figure out where the top of the fence is and therefore have nothing to fly up onto or over, and the sort of 2" poultry netting sold at Home Depot or Kent or any home improvement type place is just the ticket. Even three or two foot high netting of this type might work for you. It all depends on how ambitious and determined your birds are.

More solid fences or those with readily visible top lines on them, like a kennel panel made with a framework of metal tubing or latticework with a top rail enclosing a deck. typically need to be higher to keep out determined chickens that can fly some, at least six feet, and even then some will just cackle-laugh at you as they sail up and over without missing a beat. Having something irresistible on the other side, like juicy red ripe tomatoes, is the most problematic. I'll never forget how I once thought years ago that I'd foil my new chickens by--hey! using some spare kennel panels to fence in my tomato garden! Six-foot high panels, too... The white Leghorns got in with no problems at all, of course, as I found out the first time I discovered them inside the tomato 'pen', merrily trashing the wonderful new place of heavenly eats which I'd made for them. If they hadn't all been such good layers and such scrawny little things without much meat on them, I might have had chicken dinner that very evening to appease my rage.

You can also try using flat rocks or beach stones as 'mulch' if your chickens wind up leaving certain plants or shrubs alone, but start digging up the soil around them. I'm dealing with this right now because my own chickens now have access to a couple of rugosa roses growing in small raised beds on a gravel terrace. I'm using the flat rock method to protect the enclosed soil which the birds would love to turn into new dusting sites and I'm sure that aside from losing a few low-growing flowers off the bushes later on, that the roses themselves will be fine. Of course we're talking about big mature bushes here. I wouldn't trust the chickens with little two-foot high bushes and would fence something like that off because I know they do love eating those rose petals...

 

[woodmort]

Every time we get new chickens we have to train them to stay out of the front yard but we also put up fence, including on the porch stairs, to keep them out.

 

[Kuntry Klucker]

They will get on your porch and they will eat just about everything in your flower beds. Part of the joys of owning chickens. You can however maybe put some chicken wire around the flower beds. That might keep them out. You could possible do the same with the porch too.

I have chicken wire around my spice garden in the backyard where they free range. I did not want them eating all my spices and plants in that area. It does the job, they stay out.

those are just a few ideas.