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My young hens are learning to jump up to and over the gates and fences I have erected and have started to invade my veggie patch. Strawberries pecked to bits, onions trampled and spuds dug up. When i catch them it seems like they are like naughty children and "know" they have done smth wrong. Can they be trained NOT to go to certain places, or is the only answer to make the barriers higher?

(I have 5 hens in a secure 4m x 4m compound. They have stripped this bare of green stuff. If I open the door this lets them out into the semi-wild "bottom garden" which they love, and contains plenty of grass and weeds but also contains a fenced potato patch. A gate leads to the upper garden which is the veggie patch)

btw I initially thought their long-distance eyesight was pretty bad but it aint - they can spot me 40 yards away, and leg it to the door of the compound as soon as they see me, hoping to be let out!. they are SO cute. But I can't have them destroying my veggies !

Mine would, and have, done the same, the only answer is to protect your crops, Hard working hippy's blog shows pics of plants surrounded by twigs? I just made the fences higher and clipped their wings, put all the overwintering crops in one bed I can fence off, so i can free range them in the winter, I miss them running, wings flapping to greet anyone who opens the back door

We had to make the barriers higher and doubled up the height of the gates! If you can 'train' a chicken I'd love to know how!

Millymollymandy wrote:..... If you can 'train' a chicken I'd love to know how!

MMM.... you just have to be firm with them......

Yup, Mine do it all too... They haven't reached my strawbs yet but I net them from the wild birds anyway.

From what I have seen, mine haven't caused any damage to anything of a reasonable size - they are even ignoring the 3inch tall carrots. I have put netting over some things (parsnips, brassicas) but I allow them to roam the rest of it.

I don't believe it is possible to train a chicken, and I doubt they know they are doing something wrong (like a dog or cat does) From what I can make out Chickens are the dumbest animals, even when I repetitively lift them off of the carrot bed they go back on, and they don't like being lifted... I get bucked at They gladly position themselves right under my feet or 3 inches from the front of a moving wheelbarrow.



Have you been feeding them grass clippings and such things in their run? They'll love that as mine do... and my girls also like a well kept lawn - not big fans of the tall grass at all.

Their wings were clipped when we got them 3 months ago - does it need doing again?

I feed them "fresh weeds" rather than just grass - they also like docks, and dandelions. I reckon they don't like grass when it gets long, coz the flat soft munchable blades turn into harder tubes.

My "naughty children" comment comes from the difference in behaviour - in the OK wild/bottom garden they come to greet me to see what I might have for them. If I find them in the veggie patch - they leg it, frantically trying to find their way back to the "safe" zone.

I don't think they are the dumbest animals at all. And they learn by copying. I had my spud patch fenced by rather nice "X" willow fencing from Dobbies. My spuds were safe for a whole month. One day I find Speckledy inside and eject her. The very next day a different THREE hens had got inside. I put a line of string 6 inches above the fence (to stop them perching on the top) and that has worked so far.

Mrs Tweedy didn't believe it either....

Reading all the posts made me chuckle as we have had the same with our hens.They are incredably stupid and jump in front of the wheelbarrow,they do know when they have been naughty and try to leggit for cover when they know they have been rumbled and before "tinkerbelle"(top of my pecking order )was about to fly down off the fence into the kitchen patch she used to let me know she was about to do it by making lots of noise crowing and so forth so stupid because just as she landed I was straight out to shoo her out,they are penned up the end of the garden (about 40 by 15 metres)now but come the winter after a wing clipping(I find you have to do both or it doesn't work)and lots of new fences around my new (only) flower bed I will let them out again as it is true it is lovely to have them at the back door and welcome you when you get home(but can I face retrieving them from the woods,the patch,next doors garden,the field behind............

I thought mine were digging their way out of the compound..... but it was only a dust bath. :-)