Patridge bantam chicken poorly foot?

[BERTIE MCSQUIRTY]

wonderful to watch (there are 3 of them) they have been in the garden every night this past week, defacating on the borders and crushing the plants, and spitting out what they dont want.

 

thankfully, they have not tried the coop.......yet!, mind you they would need a pneumatic drill and a sledgehammer to get in there but never say never. i cant even let the puppy out for a wee which is annoying as i am just training her now.

 

i found the entry point coming from the plot next door, but they have smashed the fence down that i have put up within the night!! the rest of the boundary is brick wall.

 

any advice on discouraging them greatfully received.

[jackiepoppies]

 

That would be a bit of a dilemma for me.

I would love to see badgers in my garden ( regardless of damage to plants), but I too am training a new puppy, 8 week old Topaz, and she is doing very well (as long as I am up at 1st sound of movement).

Now normally I wouldn't mind the odd accident, trouble is, Topaz is a Great Dane

 

Jackiex

[Snowy]

Oh my goodness! Lovely to see them, but they can be very destructive! Have read some horror stories about badgers digging into chicken runs on the Practical Poultry forum!

Hope your girls are OK Bertie! No advice on deterring them - might be worth having a look on P P to see what others have done

[Louisdog]

No advice sorry but it will be hard deterring them, I heard about someone who blocked a hole under the fence with a brick and next day it was moved, so they tried a breeze block, moved, then two blocks, moved, and so on and so on until they got their mate to help them life a big lump of concrete into the hole, they had pretty much given up by this point and just wanted to see what would happen. It was moved the following morning! So now I think they just live with them.

 

Hopefully they are shy and scared, we had a bolshy one near where we used to live and I was scared of him! You'd shine the torch on him and he'd stand his ground and growl!

 

Good luck though hopefully someone else will have some better advice.

 

Edit: electric wire would probably protect your chickens but not much help with dog

[BERTIE MCSQUIRTY]

not too worried about the coop or the run as the coop stands 2ft off the ground and the run has concrete going down a foot into the soil with wire mesh underneath...but as i said ....never say never!

last night they completely bulldozed the border - far more disruptive than the chickens damage!! not really bothered about the border else i wouldnt have the chickens free ranging!!

 

tomorrow i am going to put a pile of slabs and stack them near the entry - hopefully that will deter them, but i doubt it!

[HENthusiastic]

[Paola]

Any pics of the wreckers Bertie?

[jane carter]

aha ---so it's not just us then?! Each morning we go out into the garden to see where the overnight break-ins have been, some days it looks like we've been landmined! This has happened every Winter for the last three years. Each day we pile the bricks, logs, breeze blocks etc against the holes in the fence, and each day they look like they've been very carefully and precisely moved to one side.Some mornings, i think the badgers have been in a nark, and they just burrow under the whole lot!It has become a battle of wills in the past, but i love badgers and have to accept that they're going to do this....i don't have to like it tho', so my sympathies, it is difficult!

jane

[BERTIE MCSQUIRTY]

Any pics of the wreckers Bertie?

 

 

no .......i have broken my camera and cant afford a new one yet........(burnt it by placing it on top of the woodburner )

 

gutted about that really, specially as i have a forever growing cute puppy, and badgers in the garden

[BERTIE MCSQUIRTY]

aha ---so it's not just us then?! Each morning we go out into the garden to see where the overnight break-ins have been, some days it looks like we've been landmined! This has happened every Winter for the last three years. Each day we pile the bricks, logs, breeze blocks etc against the holes in the fence, and each day they look like they've been very carefully and precisely moved to one side.Some mornings, i think the badgers have been in a nark, and they just burrow under the whole lot!It has become a battle of wills in the past, but i love badgers and have to accept that they're going to do this....i don't have to like it tho', so my sympathies, it is difficult!

jane

 

in your experience would it be a waste of time to put the slabs down then? (i have a dozen or so of them that i was going to stack up - but not worth the bother if they burrow underneath them.)

 

theres one big one and i presume the other 2 are the bairns, but you are right in your description- it does look as though they have landmined the whole area. i had to walk past one tonight - he growled at me

[SnowWhite]

I don't think there is anything you can do to deter a badger. They establish tracks thay they use time after time and generation after generation.

 

We have a large badger set near us, and when we moved in to our house were told that a badger regularly walks up the road and through our garden. Sure enough there is a clear path, which eventually goes under the back fence, across our neighbour's garden and out the other side! Most mornings we can see the distruction caused luckily we have a practical rather than pretty garden!

 

We've tried everything and the previous inhabitants of our house did too, to stop this badger from charging in unwanted. They can dig through weld mesh, and plough up soil, concrete blocks and fences to follow their tracks!

 

If anyone does know how to get rid - I'll try anything!

[HENthusiastic]

[BrunswickBB]

Not sure how resistent Badgers are to such things - but could you run electric netting where they like to enter into the garden? I shock or two from that might deter them?

[Louisdog]

I belive a badger would respect electric netting or strands.

[Egluntyne]

Some useful advice **here**