The great hosta mowdown...

[Folly's place]

You can have lovely flower beds, OR chickens. 24" fencing won't work to protect your flowers either. Plan to fence the garden, or confine the birds. Electric poultry netting works well, and also protects them from ground predators.
Or give up on hostas and plant stuff that the chickens dislike, like herbs and mints, and catnip. And big rocks.
Mary

 

[HillBilly64]

Mine had several acres to wander over - plus the neighbours 3+ acre lawn, but they always seemed to be in my herb garden, flower beds or mulched banks, on my porch. So they have now be confined to a free range area to keep them out of unwanted places (electric - so a bit more expensive). Much easier to keep them in somewhere than try and fence them out of everywhere you don't want them.

 

[April’s Zoo]

Much easier to keep them in somewhere than try and fence them out of everywhere you don't want them.

 

[proudmommie31]

They are smart! Darn! Well we shall see how much they really want the hostas once I put this fencing up. We have 3 acres and since moving here recently, it is not fenced. Our last home had an acre of split rail with wire mesh inside of it that we installed but that takes time to get to. They don’t want to stay in their coop on nice days....they spit fire at me. I’m hoping they will wander to other areas that aren’t important to me with the fence to deter but will wait to buy more in case it doesn’t work. My chickens jumped over 3’ fencing when they really wanted to also so it will be some trial and error. I hope the hostas spring back next year if I can keep them out.

The hostas will spring back. Mine were completely eradicated down to the dirt by my chickens. They came back about half as full this year, and i'm hoping back to full thickness by next year, but my chickens had been relocated to a friends house before winter (due to a storm collapsing their house). A 18' fence will look nice but it won't stop them if they love hostas as much as mine did.