My hens are so free range that they have a terrible habit of breaking through the hedge (and the sheep netting) and going next door. Generally my neighbours are very tolerant, but to be honest I can’t blame them for not wanting the fertilizing service that my hens have been applying to their garden!.
Freshly made chicken manure is nothing like the pellets you get in those neat little tubs in the garden centre. It is very wet, very sticky and gets everywhere. But short of shutting them back in their pen for 23 hours a day, like a prisoner in virtually solitary confinement, it’s very hard to stop them exploring. I love to see them out and about, especially as they started life in a battery cage with barely space to turn around.
I know I need to confine them better and I’ve already looked into getting an electric fence, but the dog would hate it and I’m sure I would keep forgetting it was live and they are SO expensive. I’ve tried thickening the hedge and filling in the gaps, but they always find another place to break out and it’s usually somewhere just out of reach, sandwiched between a very prickly berberis and a huge and spiky shrub rose so I can’t reach it to block their way. I haven’t given up yet, but……. Well it’s just one of the perils of free-range hens I suppose
