Simple solutions to gardens and chickens.

[Royd]

Last year, when I planted my corn patch, I installed a temporary fence of varying lengths of bamboo, which I have, in abundance, about 2" apart. As long as they couldn't walk through it, they couldn't get into the corn. I realized, then, that chickens do not have the ability to target a spot on the ground, and then, fly over an object, to that spot. They must land on the object, then, proceed to their target.

So, I have been looking for simple, temporary solutions to keeping the chickens out of freshly planted sections of the garden or away from crops which they find delectable.

I happened upon some plastic hardware cloth, in someone's garbage and it works wonders.

The plastic was 40" wide and I split it in half, weaved bamboo through it, about 3' on center, for supports and stuck it in the ground.

Here is my crop of peas. It looks like nothing is across the front, but there is a fine 2" garden netting, about 2' high. This really confuses the chickens.

Here's a close up shot of the fine netting.

The trick is not to give them a top rail, which they can target.

 

[elmo]

Great advice! You're on to something there.

I have only two quite small raised garden beds. I cover the beds with white garden fabric supported on the sides by inexpensive wire garden edging. The chickens are afraid of the white fabric...maybe it reminds them of snow? They steer clear of it, anyway.

 

[Rockin' Reds]

Great idea!!! I have some old temporary orange construction fencing that looks very similar to the green fencing you are using. Once I get my chicken induced lunar landscaping fixed I am going to roll it across the driveway to keep them out of my front yard. We have 10 acres and they wanna be in the front yard....silly girls!

I was wondering if they would jump over it or not, but hopefully with no landing spot they won't. My only glitch is going to be getting it to stay upright. The area I am fencing off is long so I will have to put a light fence post or something through the weaving every few feet to get it to stay. Hope it goes as well as yours has!!

 

[hickchick55]

Quote:
That is good advice for a newbie like me. I am so jealous that you have actual green things coming out of the ground. We are almost out of snow- finally. Thanks for the ideas.

 

[kidd42]

I sectioned off my yard in this manner, I want to girls to freerange but also don't want them in my garden area. I bought 24" wide plastic fencing at a bigbox store, came in a 50' roll. I stretched this across a section of the yard with small cheap 36" fence post's. I have had this up for a year, not one of the girls has flown over it to get to the garden, yet it is short enough that we can all step over it without any problems.

 

[mistymeadowchicks]

Thanks Royd for a great suggestion/ explanation--I appreciate a creative solution to a problem. '

' My budget didn't include 600+ feet of fencing like I've seen suggested on here by others. I used construction silt fencing which is considerably cheaper than the welded wire w/ posts I had been pricing. A little tacky, but it's working so far! I was guessing "out-of-sight, out-of- mind", but based on your theory, the flimsy top may be an advantage. I'm also jealous--my peas are only 3-4" tall now! (Second planting since the chickens immensely enjoyed plucking the just sprouting peas from the first time!) '

'

 

[Royd]

Rockin' Reds :

Great idea!!! I have some old temporary orange construction fencing that looks very similar to the green fencing you are using. Once I get my chicken induced lunar landscaping fixed I am going to roll it across the driveway to keep them out of my front yard. We have 10 acres and they wanna be in the front yard....silly girls!

I was wondering if they would jump over it or not, but hopefully with no landing spot they won't. My only glitch is going to be getting it to stay upright. The area I am fencing off is long so I will have to put a light fence post or something through the weaving every few feet to get it to stay. Hope it goes as well as yours has!!

I just happened upon the green fencing, but I really like it, because it is inconspicuous, to people driving by....The fine netting only lasts a couple of years, and is a real pain to store properly.

If I didn't have access to bamboo, I'd use whatever was available...Old conduit, or you could buy some thinwall pvc or 3/8" rebar and cut it to length.​

 

[azygous]

In my section of the country, we have something similar called deer netting. It's black and maybe a bit sturdier than your green netting. I run it around my squash patch until the plants are hairy-leaved and big enough that the chickens aren't interested. I even use it to keep out the deer.

 

[Mr.Bojangles]

Our Home Depot went out of business so they had the orange safety fence on sale for $10.00 per hundred foot roll. I purchased some and fenced in a couple of acres for my chickens. I purchased 3/4 sch 40 pvc pipe also and cut the pipe 5 foot long and drilled a hole at the top and a foot from the bottom. I used them for post and used cable ties to secure the fence to the post. Well it works great with no escapes.. I figure I can move the fence by the end of the summer to another two acres with the same fence...