Can anyone give me some advice as to how I can keep my chickens out of the garden. They have a 3 acre paddock and meadow with a lovely wooded area, but insist on coming over the 5 bar gate into the garden and are currently digging up all my spring bulbs. I have clipped their wings but they can hop onto the gate and off the other side.

Does anyone have any idea how I can keep them out? OH is getting most upset

(06-01-2018, 02:16 PM)PickyP Wrote: Can anyone give me some advice as to how I can keep my chickens out of the garden. They have a 3 acre paddock and meadow with a lovely wooded area, but insist on coming over the 5 bar gate into the garden and are currently digging up all my spring bulbs. I have clipped their wings but they can hop onto the gate and off the other side.

Does anyone have any idea how I can keep them out? OH is getting most upset

Fenceing. It's the only way and it will safeguard against foxes if you do it right.

Can you extend the height of the gate and put chicken wire on it ? 

I suspect Eggy meant to write Electric Fencing although this would be very expensive round a 3 acre paddock.

If they can't get over the gate (assuming that we find a way to stop them) can your chickens get over either side of this gate? Just to give an idea of how big an area we need to stop them.

how many chickens are we talking about ?

extend the height of your gate with trellis or some such. You could also consider the plastic spike strips that deter pigeons supposedly.If the gate is not a nice perch then your girls may give up using it. That said they will then look for another way in

We are only talking about 6 hens. They can get over both sides of the gate. I have just re-clipped their wings but they are still managing to hop onto the gate and then off the other side. I have looked at those pigeon strips but didn't know if anybody had tried them?

(21-01-2018, 06:36 PM)PickyP Wrote: We are only talking about 6 hens. They can get over both sides of the gate. I have just re-clipped their wings but they are still managing to hop onto the gate and then off the other side. I have looked at those pigeon strips but didn't know if anybody had tried them?

Aren't you worried about foxes ? Keeping chickens safe is my biggest worry. All of mine are in enclose runs with roof that are fox proof. Ok, it;s not going to be cheap, but the reward of building a fox safe run
pays dividends.