I'm not sure if this comes under the typical "pests" heading,but I thought someone here might have some advice for me.

We have free range chickens and peacocks on our property and they love nothing more than to dig through my newly created and mulched gardens. Needless to say, this drives me mad and doesn't do much to encourage growth amongst the new little plants.

Does anyone have any advice or suggestions on how to deter them? (other than penning the birds :o)

Thanks
Lynette

well it's either gonna have to be pen the birds and let them free range at a specific time of the day ie.,. mid afternoon when the chooks have finished laying let them run for 2 or 3 hours and keep the herded away from the gardens. that's what we do it works well.

or fence the gardens in such a way that they can't get in to stop the peacocks you would have to put wire over the top as well, but a 4 foot chicken wire fence will keep the chooks out.

mail len

lens garden page

My chooks avoid my mulched areas where I've also placed horse manure. I generally leave the horse poo on top of the bark, and they don't scratch around it the mulch at all.

Prior to this, they used to particularly go for the mulched areas because that's where the grubs were!

Give it a go, and see if I'm right! (Or if it's just my chooks. . .)