Keeping chickens out of the garden?

[rmonge00]

Hey everyone,

I will be letting my chickens free rand over 2 fenced in acres, however, I did want to keep about 1/2 to 3/4 of an acre as garden. Any ideas of how to keep the chickens out of the garden other than fencing? (I was hoping for a cheaper method!!) I read somewhere that animals do not like to step on wire either so I was thinking of just laying chicken wire (somewhere between 2-4 feet wide) over the ground to separate the rest of the acreage from the garden. Anyone else heard of this? Anyone else have other ideas?

Thank you! You guys are the absolute best!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ryan

 

[greenSearcher]

Won't work!

Many chickens live on wire. The only thing that will keep chickens out of your garden is a good barrier, so speaks the gardener with a 6 ft chain link fence. My garden is 25x40 and I can grow quite a lot in it. I will be growing food for the chickens, I am trying bird netting over anything I hope to keep. So far the pansies are still there and they have started to peak through the net. Maybe another one for the chickens don't eat list, item #5. I fenced the herb garden with 4 ft chicken wire supported by posts, and DH found them in there anyway. I suspect the weak spot is the gate, will hang bird netting from the arbor to the ground like a curtain, should deter them from that point. Right now the herb garden looks like it was bombed, lots of dust bathing pits and dead plants. What didn't drown last June (2 wks of rain on heavy clay soil) was eaten to the ground by grasshoppers. I hoped that some of the perennials might come back from the roots, but nada.... Time to go to the bare earth and start over. One thing about chickens, you will have lots of opportunities to start over if you don't fence them out.
Try cheapcycle, freecycle or CL and maybe you can find fencing that won't break the budget.

My garden fence was about $600, but that was rolled into the house when it was build a few years ago.