I love having chickens for neighbors. I really do. But honestly, I do not love having them on my front porch. Having spent countless hours in the past trying to fence chickens in, the approach we took with this homestead was to let them completely free range outside of the fenced in yard and garden in the back of the house. This was working out just fine until our friendly, curious chickens decided we needed more closeness and started hanging on the front steps and porch, and subsequently pooping all over the place. I can’t even describe how gross it is to step out your front door barefoot into a fresh chicken dropping. There is nothing that can make that experience okay. Something had to be done. We needed to take back our front yard and porch!
We still wanted them to free range and felt that fencing them out would be much simpler than fencing them in. The small front yard of our farmhouse already had a stone wall covered in ivy running around the upper side along the driveway, and was bordered around the other side by a dropoff and stone wall going down to the lower driveway. Fencing the perimeter of the front yard with a fence and gate was the way to go.
Since this fence didn’t really need to be sturdy (we are talking about chickens here after all, not dogs or goats), we decided to use our abundant apple tree branches we’d been pruning and some chicken wire to make a simple, rustic fence. It took a few more weekend work days than we thought, but in the end, things came together very nicely.
The natural branches blended right in with the natural scenery, and the chicken wire almost looked invisible when you stood back and looked at it. I was happy to not interfere with the view.
We decided the gate needed something sturdier than apple branches since it would get so much use and movement, so we set two pressure treated posts into concrete and attached our lightweight gate with some hinges and a latch. We finished it with a branch archway over the top.
When we were finished, we had an enclosed front yard where we could now read a book on hot summer days, plant a flower garden under the window, and go barefoot and carefree. The whole project only cost us around $50 for a 150 foot roll of chicken wire, two posts, a bag of concrete, some outdoor screws, and the gate hardware. Not bad at all for a homestead building project.
The last issue was the slope and mud where the sidewalk began, which I remedied by setting in flat stones and filling the gaps with gravel. It didn’t take long, and will save a lot of messy shoes and potential slippage in the dark.
As for the chickens, they seemed a bit confused at first over their banishment from the front yard, but I think we will have a much better neighbor relationship from this point forward. Sometimes good fences really do make good neighbors.
My chickens also visit both my front door and back deck. To get up on the back deck they have to hop up 9 steps. Then they come and peer inside through the patio door. For some reason they really like staring in at me.
Ours still like to watch us through some windows in the living room that are at ground level. The people show must be entertaining!
I was wondering how you kept the girls out of your fairy gardens….Mine would ruin those fragile fairyscapes in no time!
Most of my fairy gardens are up in big flower pots in the fenced back yard, but now that the front yard is fenced I already started building some there too!