[Tom Parrot]

How are you going to keep chickens off the raised beds. My chickens do a lot of scratching the raised beds ignore the seedlings and me doing a bit of gardenig. Can't get the carrots out without one or chickens getting under the cloche with me.

[joyfull]

tom you seem to be replying to nobody, has a post been removed?

[New shoot]

I moved Tom's post into here Joy.  It was originally added to a very old thread about the costs of gardening in Frugal Living.

In my experience you need some serious defences against hens investigating the veg patch, or any other part of the garden for that matter, but if anyone has found a solution, I reckoned the poultry forum would be the best place to ask

[grinling]

debris netting works well, but good anchorage needed for weight

[Tom Parrot]

Hi readers,
Just to let anybody interest, I put up 1 metre plastic fencing around the inside of the raised bed, supported with sticks.
This also allow me to throw over fleece or netting to keep other predators out.
Several months later and it's working well. Just a bit of leaning over the fence to sow and weed etc.

[danfinn1]

I have raised beds and before I planted I allowed my hens to grub around in both, during the winter, as i have this year. Then I raise the sides and net across both. They do jump up now and again but they soon get scooted off. My beds are in a separate part of the garden so my hens get restricted access.

However, if they get sight of rhubarb then it is quite a job to keep them away

I am considering cloches this spring

[andreadon]

We generally use chicken wire - awful for keeping predators out, but awesome for keeping chooks out

We unwrap it around the area we want to protect and then we puch bamboo sticks through it to anchor it.

At the moment, the naughty birds have found that the 2ft chicken wire is jumpable (it's taken them a year!) but the higher stuff is okay.

It's just a case of use it until they figure it out