Securing Chicken Feed From Black Bears

[pennyJo1960]

Nope Bears have one motivation FOOD of any kind listen to what you have been told please they are so very right

 

[buffy-the-eggpile-layer]

We plan to install a hot wire, and in the meantime we will make sure to secure feed in metal, airtight (garbage can type) containers indoors. We are also thinking about installing a motion sensor flood or strobe light by the coop--it's near enough to our bedroom window that it might rouse us into pot-clanging action. Thanks again, everyone, for sharing your experiences.

 

[buffy-the-eggpile-layer]

Nope Bears have one motivation FOOD of any kind listen to what you have been told please they are so very right

That's what we were afraid of. We will be as careful as can be. We meticulously built the coop/run by hand and have raised some (thus far) very healthy and happy chickens--would not want to lose that all in a blink!

 

[azygous]

Umm, pot clanging isn't going to deter a bear once they've focused on your chickens. Lights will make it possible for you to see the bear, but light doesn't have any effect on bears, raccoons, or other predators intent on nabbing themselves a chicken meal.

To illustrate how ineffective making noise is when you are attempting to make a bear turn around and leave, one time I saw a bear walking back and forth outside my run, trying to figure out the best way to get at the chickens. I ran out beating on a pot with a spoon and the bear didn't even look at me. I got closer, screaming at the bear at the top of my lungs. It didn't so much as give me a sideways glance.

Not to recommend to anyone that this is a good way to get a bear to leave, but I was desperate. I picked up a rock the size of a basket ball and walked up to the bear and dropped it directly onto its back. That finally got its attention, and he finally noticed the human screeching at him to leave her chickens alone. The bear then ran off.

Another time I was just outside the run when my chickens alerted me there was an unfriendly animal coming. Understanding chicken language probably saved my life. It's the closest I've ever come to being injured by a bear. I was just outside a small vestibule adjacent to the run I had built to give shelter to the rooster when he was on outside duty. I just had time to close myself up in it when the bear was on me, snarling and biting at the hog panel door. I was screaming at the bear and beating my fists against the door as the bear was nudging it with its snout. It finally ran off and hung around under a pine until the wildlife officers came and tranquilized it and hauled it off.

This was the final straw that caused me to get hot wire installed. I've watched while a bear saunters up to the hot wire, tastes the peanut butter bait on the energized wire and reacts rather gracefully with a 180 degree pirouette to race off as if his butt was on fire. Ten thousand volts can be a wonderful thing to see in action.

 

[azygous]

Okay, where do your black bears live? What state?

 

[buffy-the-eggpile-layer]

Okay, where do your black bears live? What state?

Southwest VA, in a national park basically

 

[azygous]

Good. I've heard from people on this forum that eastern bears are much better behaved than their western cousins who are downright barbaric with no manners whatsoever.

I might add to the grizzly (no pun intended) tales I've related that a few years ago, just six miles from my place, a woman went out beating two pans together to scare off a couple of young bears on her deck. The noise apparently enraged the bears who proceeded to tear her face and scalp off. Luckily, she lived, but was in the hospital for many months for reconstructive surgery.

Bears are so plentiful here that the hardware store in town keeps its backdoor open during business hours so when a bear runs into the store from the front, it has the open backdoor beckoning so it won't get confused and run amok in the store. Did I mention bears can do a lot of damage in just a few minutes?

 

[Mvan42]

Okay, where do your black bears live? What state?

Western, Maryland here... I don’t suggest running toward at bear no matter where you live. If they are hungry enough or a sow with cubs they will attack. I have personally have been within 5 yards of three different bears and neither have ran more curious than anything (no chickens then).

 

[trumpeting_angel]

I had success scaring off a black bear who broke into my screened porch to go after the garbage. (In my defense, I had only lived here a month and didn’t know better.). I screamed at it from an upstairs window. It worked quite well - dropped everything and took off.

Black bears are quite different from grizzlies. But they will do anything to protect their cubs. And they will break in when they smell food. One woman in a wheelchair was mauled in Vermont last year in her own kitchen. They think she was “in the way” when the bear was trying to escape.

 

[buffy-the-eggpile-layer]

Good. I've heard from people on this forum that eastern bears are much better behaved than their western cousins who are downright barbaric with no manners whatsoever.

I might add to the grizzly (no pun intended) tales I've related that a few years ago, just six miles from my place, a woman went out beating two pans together to scare off a couple of young bears on her deck. The noise apparently enraged the bears who proceeded to tear her face and scalp off. Luckily, she lived, but was in the hospital for many months for reconstructive surgery.

Bears are so plentiful here that the hardware store in town keeps its backdoor open during business hours so when a bear runs into the store from the front, it has the open backdoor beckoning so it won't get confused and run amok in the store. Did I mention bears can do a lot of damage in just a few minutes?

That's some relief, then (the Eastern bear part not the scalping incident--so sorry for that woman). A couple neighbors of ours have lived here quite some time and have never had issues with anything getting into their pretty loosely secured coops (we made ours Fort Knox-esque nonetheless)--only during free range hours by the usual suspects: foxes and coyotes. People rarely see bears but they are here, albeit shier than their Western cousins. Thanks for the cautionary tales, we will re-think our methods!