trying to make an effective chicken deterrent.

jackrussell007

evening folks

we got a coupla hens this year to supply us with eggs. we let them free range about the garden all day, which is great except they tend to make a point of coming up onto our patio area everytime they want to have a crap. They're wrecking the place, so much so I would get rid of them in the morning except my kids would probably ship me out after them.

I want to try build a deterrent to stop them coming up onto our patio. I've seen the motion activated sprinklers. they're not really suitable as I dont want a sprinkler going off everytime we get within a certain range. I thought it would be ideal if I found that they were sensitive to high pitched noise, like those rodent repellers, maybe i could find a way to hook one of those up to a motion detector or something.

I tested some high pitched tones playing straight out of my laptop but they paid no attention to it. Any idea if they are sensitive to high pitches? Care to suggest anything else i could try?

kerryjack

If you can develop something to stop hens roaming on to patios I think you would become a millionaire i often thought to try out some kind of electric dog collar on them but I think they would be too dumb for that

jackrussell007

yeah I've read comments like that a coupla places. theres definetly a demand there alright.

Its hard to know if they are infuriatingly stupid or infuriatingly clever. It doesnt matter what I throw at them they still arrive back there a couple of seconds later. Its like they have zero memory. I feel like the bull McCabe wading into the sea to fight the tide. Its a battle that just cant be won.

aonb

You can put some fencing/chicken wire at the edge of your patio, preventing them access on to the patio - put a "gate" in the fence, or make it so low that the humans can step over it (having clipped the hens wings!)
You can stop letting them free range
You can put some sort of containing run outside their coop - restrict their movement to where you want to keep them.
You could have some sort of moveable 'run' that you put on a new bit of grass every couple of days...

I ended up building a huge run to keep them in, and off our patio where they seemed to spend most of their time when free ranging :mad: NOTHING Ive come up with in the years Ive let my hens free range would keep them off the patios, apart from a fence of chickenwire...

kerryjack

I have kept hens for about 10 years now and have tried all sorts of coups and runs but have finally got it sorted I got an old 8 foot trampoline base chicken wire all around and a very small wooden box on top its covered wirh pollytunnel plastic its very light and can be easily moved every day problem with the fixed run is that it can be a dirty old spot in garden and can attract our furry friends with the movable run you don't have that problem

fiestaman

kerryjack wrote: »

I have kept hens for about 10 years now and have tried all sorts of coups and runs but have finally got it sorted I got an old 8 foot trampoline base chicken wire all around and a very small wooden box on top its covered wirh pollytunnel plastic its very light and can be easily moved every day problem with the fixed run is that it can be a dirty old spot in garden and can attract our furry friends with the movable run you don't have that problem

Any pics? How many hens do you have?

TherapyBoy

Build them their own patio!

IH784man

A few of these

With chicken wire cable tied on to it,works a treat

TopTec

Bit unsightly for a domestic garden though....

TT

IH784man

Well there not that hard looked at tbh,it's that or stepping in chicken dung every time you walk out the door