This is odd cause I was going to ask about this very thing. My chickens were so good staying on our property .......so good.....for about six months, lol. Now the weather is nicer and they are everywhere! We have almost 8 acres but it is a narrow piece of land. We are at the back so I don't think they will go to the road. But they have started crossing the fence to either side. One side is a cow field and the other had horses in it til recently. I don't want them in the fields because of more danger from hawks and of course because it is not our property. Now that they have started that I need to talk to both land owners. It is not near their houses......they may not mind...but I need to ask. My question here is.......could I run bird netting on our side of the fences to block them? One fence we paid half on....but not the other. But I wanted to ask here if that might work before mentioning it to the neighbors.
I hope they never go toward the road.....the only way to block them would be a gate across our driveway. I would like that but I doubt if hubby would. Well then we could repair the fence across the back of our property and I wouldn't have to worry about the dog leaving. This one is probably too old to leave, but a new puppy would be inclined to wander.
So would bird netting work, be expensive or be a pain to work with? I've never seen bird netting.
I hope they never go toward the road.....the only way to block them would be a gate across our driveway. I would like that but I doubt if hubby would. Well then we could repair the fence across the back of our property and I wouldn't have to worry about the dog leaving. This one is probably too old to leave, but a new puppy would be inclined to wander.
So would bird netting work, be expensive or be a pain to work with? I've never seen bird netting.
I started out with just a coop. I have 11 acres...plan was to let them range and only use coop to sleep. But...hawks ended up being a pretty big problem for months in the Fall. So, I built a run out of dog panels. I cooped them up until about 4PM, and let them out. Seemed to work well...except...my girls started to trek to the other end of the property, through what I considered was impassible areas(steep, covered in brush), and into a woman's back yard and started to scratch up her flower bed. :/ I mean, seriously. She is so far away-I cannot see her house, I wouldn't really consider her a neighbor! SO far away to me...anyhow...I went apologized, and now my girls have about 250 feet of deer fencing by their coop to keep them contained during day, and I let them out at 7PM as they won't trek that far at that time. :/ I would love to free range, but I am guessing that I will need to fence all 11 acres to really do that, and I can only imagine what THAT would cost! Chickens are WAY braver and smarter than you think! I cannot believe they ventured that far, and they certainly remember the way to get to her yard, have to navigate a rough terrain, and several attempts to merely fence off that area were not successful-they would walk to the end of the fence or walk back and forth until they found an opening, hop over... ugh! I had NO idea chickens would venture THAT far. :/ I thought that they would stay confined to my 11 acres, maybe only hanging out on a 5 acre radius. :/ Is it normal for them to roam that far? It was winter when they started that, so things were dead, maybe they were finding better areas? Will they stay closer to home when things are green come spring? I don't even want to test it as I have to trek a long ways and swim in briars to get them back!
.....we have about 1 1/4 acres and they stay in the yard or in the woods right next to the yard......and yes they've torn my flower beds apart....but they were full of weeds anyway....LOL...****** me off to begin with then I just gave up.....they are happy running around....and we live up on the mtn. so no one really see's the flowers anyway.....
