I love the chickens, I find them beautiful, and could watch them for hours. My husband quietly tolerates my love for animals, until that is, he steps in something... The birds have gotten chased by my little Japanese Chin, so they don't come around our porch (new deck that hubby just built last summer). However the walkway and drive, well, they get salt and peppered with poop. If I get into breeding 2-3 different breeds and add turkeys to that, my wonderful, normally patient husband may no longer be so tolerant. Also, my friends who don't have the same love for chickens or turkeys, don't wanna step in poop when they visit.
We have 15 acres and it is on the side of a hill, so the terrain maybe hard to fence. Chicken wire to trees is doable. The chickens so much LOVE free ranging in he woods, they get lots of bugs, and have lots of shade in the summer, so I don't want to give them a small coop'd area. On days when they have to stay in the coop area, they have little temper tantrums. You can hear them squak and yell, they constantly mutter until they are let out. We had one hen that if the had to have them locked up for some reason, upon letting her out of would take a couple steps past us and squak and seeming yell at us, then would take a couple more steps, turn around and yell at us some more. Hysterically funny.
So... After all this, I was hoping for the most economical way to try to keep them fenced in, and make everyone happy! :)
Jodie
--- In CHICKENS-101@
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> Hi Jodie; It's a constant battle. They eventually do learn that a broom is a dangerous weapon but as soon as you turn your back they are back. Especially if you have bird or squirrel feeders near by. I would be very careful about using electric fence. If your chickens don't fly a low garden type fence might work. I free range my silkies and have to inspect the porch every day. It's part of the cost of enjoying watching them in the yard. I did use an 18" high coated chicken wire around the porch leaving an opening for people traffic. It didn't take very long for them to figure that out.
> Ol' George
>
> --- In CHICKENS-101@
> >
> > We are looking to expand our flock from 3 hens. I like them to free range, but not on our porch. We were looking at different cost efective way to keep them contained to a particular area of our property, yet let them be able to free range a bit. I'm open to ideas, frankly we are new enough where we don't know all the different agriculture options. I did see "flock shock" electric fencing, can you really keep them contained to an area with this? We're building an easy maintenance coop with radiant heating, at least thi is the plan. :)
> >
> > Does anyone have any experience with electric fencing and chickens?
> >
> > Jodie
> >
>
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