It's happened. We finally have decided to build a fence to contain the chickens.
They have developed a nasty habit of hanging out around the house, pooping all over the walks, coming through the dog door into the garage to eat dog food (and pooping in the garage!), dig up my flower beds, and with a whole world of beautiful green grass and clover to munch on they decide they'd rather eat the newly sprouting hostas and daylilies.
We decided that the cost of fencing in the chickens is much less than the cost of fencing in all of the gardens. I find that chickens are very destructive to a garden!
We're planning a very large enclosed area so they can scratch and peck and do their chicken things and we'll bring them all the weeds from the gardens for fresh greens.
The end result is that I can actually have nice landscaping, I don't have to fence around every single garden (that's a lot of fencing), and the kids will be able play outside with bare feet!
... one other bonus is that the chickens will be more protected from predators. Red-tailed hawks are a big problem for my chickens (that's what killed our beloved rooster, Pants On The Ground) and I plan to run strands of fish line across the top of the enclosure to discourage the hawks.
I wish I had your ambition as this is something we really need to do with our chicken yard. My poor tulips have been destroyed and they dig holes in EVERY spot where there are new flowers coming up. I'm sick of running outside screaming, "Chickens!!!" and flailing my arms to get them out of the garden.
ReplyDeleteI can picture you doing that! I've done everything I can think of. We even trained our lab that when I say "get the chickens" she runs towards them to shoo them back home. But they've figured out that she's not going to hurt them and they just way for her to get bored with the game and they come back!
DeleteOMG, I can't believe the little "darlings" figured out the dog door! Yep, time to get those girls contained!
ReplyDeleteToo funny :-) That's harder than children!
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