Well the chickens have finally done it and I am fed up with their garden destruction. The little blonde hen you see on the left in the above picture is the main culprit and she is standing in front of her usual point of entry. I call it chicken route one. She would either squeeze under the gate or slide in through the side.
For some time now I have basically ignored her as she did very minimal damage but since she picked up that rooster who follows her around like a love struck puppy the damage has increased. To make matters worse he is definitely not a one hen kinda guy and will follow his main squeeze in, than commence to doing his little feeding chuckle and get all the rest of the hens to find a way inside too.
At that point it would become a scratching and feeding frenzy so I was forced to close off their points of entry.
I took a 4x4 and a couple of 18" rebar spikes to nail it into the ground to stop the under gate squeeze. The attached panel was already on the gate but I added a flap of wire fence to cover the side gap. Until this horrible dry, hot Summer no other chickens have ever bothered to attempt an entry into the garden by any significant amount. Oh sure occasionally younger teenager hens would escape and hide out in there and the two smallest Americuna hens would come in from time to time but never enough to require stopping it.
Now it is out of hand though.
The smallest hens can still get in there. Truth be told I am pretty sure all the hens could get in there if they really tried to get through the stock fence but it isn't easy for them and they simply do not like squeezing through the fence, so they don't now. They had managed to already peck all the low hanging green tomatoes into pulp and were starting to dig up my potato hill and pecking at a low hanging water melon so I decided to put a stop to it.
So far the new border defenses are holding strong as only that one particular blonde hen will bother to stay all by herself and the rooster will usually call her back before too long now anyway.
I must admit I do kinda miss the daily chicken scratching in the compost piles but I think I can survive until the garden dies out to let em back in. The entire flock was a bit bent out of shape over it for a few days but they have adjusted now it seems.
Keep Prepping Everyone!!!!
Mine don't have any problem ducking thru field fence. Even the roo so they all stay in the 50x 70 ish no climb yard... And the teenagers get one wing clipped. Both if they defy the odds. Then late evening they get out a couple hours before dark.
ReplyDeleteAnnie - I have never bothered to restrict our chickens in anyway except closing them up at night that is. In the morning one of us opens their door and they just do and go where ever their little chicken brains take them. Mostly they have a series of special spots they like for different activities and weather conditions but they do not like to squeeze through fences and prefer a larger hole for access. The garden has always been a mid tier spot for them at best and too much trouble to get into until this dry extremely hot Summer has reduced their other favorite spots appeal down so much. Hopefully they will go back to their roaming more as the season changes...
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