How to keep chickens out of flower beds – 6 tried and tested methods that homesteaders swear by

Many people like myself dream about the day they will have a spacious enough yard to own a little flock of chickens. But it isn't all making pancakes with freshly laid eggs: your flower beds could suffer tremendously, with flowers being eaten, dug up and damaged.

It is possible to keep chickens and still have flowers in your yard if you take some time to implement methods that will keep your chickens out of the beds entirely. These barriers don't have to be an eyesore to be effective either, so it's definitely worthwhile if your chickens are prone to snacking and scratching at soil.

Chicken experts and homesteaders share their tried and trusted methods to keep chickens out of flower beds just in time for peak growing season. By adding some of these preventative measures into your yard, your flowers will remain happy and healthy.

1. Build fences around your flowers or free-range areas

The most logical way to keep chickens out of your flower beds is to create a barrier either around where your chickens roam or around your flowers. This way, the two will always be separated so you don't have to worry about your plants getting destroyed.

Anna Sakawsky of The House and Homestead says, 'The most effective way to keep chickens out of garden beds is with physical barriers. We use a 4-foot high hardware cloth fence to separate our chicken coop from the flower gardens in our backyard, while our fenced vegetable garden keeps them away from our crops.'

Hardware cloth such as this SEBOSS hardware cloth roll from Amazon is smooth so it won't harm your chickens, and because its sections are small and non-shiny the fence will create less of an eyesore in your yard.

2. Create a chicken tunnel

Chicken tunnels are a tunnel crafted out of materials such as chicken wire which wind around your garden for chickens to run around in. These are commonly placed along the edge of fences so the rest of the garden goes undisturbed, and they allow chickens a chance to forage in the grass and soil without the free reign of snacking on your flower beds.

'As our gardens expand, we’re now building a chicken tunnel - a secure pathway made of chicken wire - that runs along our fence line,' says Anna. 'This allows our flock to forage while keeping them out of the beds and helps them clear weeds along the perimeter.'

If you'd like to create one to give your chickens stimulation and keep them away from your flowers, you can purchase galvanized steel chicken wire from Amazon to make it.

Anna Sakawsky

Anna is the creator of the blog The House & Homestead, as well as the editor of Homestead Living Magazine: A print and digital publication dedicated to helping as many people as possible live healthy, simple, sustainable lives. A former city girl turned modern homesteader who lives with her family (human, furry and feathered) on ¼-acre property on Vancouver Island, Anna and her family produce and preserve hundreds of pounds of their own food each year and strive to live a more self-reliant lifestyle through all that they do.

3. Turn your sprinklers on when your chickens are roaming

If you time watering your flower beds with letting your chickens out to roam, your plants will likely be in safe hands. Chickens hate getting wet, so watering your flower beds with a well-spaced lawn sprinkler layout while they are around will act as a deterrent until it's time for them to return to their coop or usual section of the yard.

Lisa Steele, a fifth generation chicken keeper, author and host, says, 'Chickens don't like to get wet, so if you time the watering of your flowers to when the chickens are out, that can keep them away from the flower beds. Note: this won't work with ducks and will in fact draw ducks to the water and the flowers, so be mindful if you keep both birds.'

This pack of two rotating lawn sprinklers from Walmart can be set to automatically switch on at certain times of the day. So, if you normally let your chickens out in the morning before the full heat of any sun, you can set your sprinklers to switch on at the same time.

4. Switch to raised planters

When chickens roam around, they typically keep their heads down searching for food or digging. If your flower beds are at ground level, this means they are incredibly easy for chickens to access as they match their eye level and require no extra effort to enter.

Switching to raised garden bed ideas isn't guaranteed to keep all chickens out if they are determined to get into them or have unclipped wings, but it can make it more difficult for them to enter the space and put them off trying.

'Planting in window boxes, raised beds, tiered beds, or other containers can help to save your flowers,' says Lisa. 'Chickens usually have their heads down as they roam the yard looking for worms, seeds and bugs, but that's not to say that an ambitious or overly observant chicken won't eventually notice that there are goodies to eat above eye level.'

This outdoor raised metal oval garden bed and the PETSCOSSET large raised wooden garden bed, both from Walmart, are two great options that will help to keep chickens out of your flower beds. The latter option is especially tall and difficult for chickens to enter.

Lisa Steele

Lisa Steele is a 5th-generation chicken keeper, author, and founder of the popular backyard chicken-keeping brand Fresh Eggs Daily. With nearly a million followers worldwide, she has been dubbed “Queen of the Coop” by the media, and has been teaching others to raise backyard flocks using herbs, natural remedies and old-timer’s methods for over a decade

5. Spray predator urine near your flower beds

An effective solution for deterring pests in a garden is to find something they hate the scent of and leave it lingering in the area. This same logic can be applied to keeping chickens out of your flower beds by spraying small amounts of predator urine around the perimeter. Chickens despise the scent, and so do many other garden critters that might cause harm to your plants.

Bryan Clayton, CEO of GreenPal, says, 'I spent 22 years running a landscaping company, and I dealt with trying to keep free range chickens out of a client's beds. It’s not the most pleasant thing to handle, but if you spray coyote urine on mulch or the edge of the beds it creates a scent barrier, and by mimicking a predator the chickens stay away. They hate it, and so do voles and rabbits.'

You can find sprays or pellets such as the shake away fox urine granules on Amazon.

Bryan Clayton

Bryan Clayton is CEO of lawn care business GreenPal. Before that, he spent more than 20 years in the lawn care and landscaping business - plus a good bit of time in pest control too.

6. Combine these tricks, and give chickens their own plants

If you're worried about your chickens missing out on the fun of rummaging through flower beds, you can keep yours protected with these tips and tricks and plant them a bed of their own. This way, the chickens will over time understand that your flowers are hard to reach but there's always a bed they can access to achieve the same thing.

'I love to plant things inside and around my chicken run to provide my chickens shade, and things to nibble on,' says Lisa. 'Evergreens, lilacs, butterfly bushes, and rose bushes are some examples of plants that the chickens enjoy from within the confines of the run.

'Just be sure to cage the plants or ring the base of each plant with stones, bricks or short plastic fencing until the roots are established and they are a few feet tall so they will have a fighting chance against the chickens.'

A ring of stones like the mixed river stone pebbles decorative filler - Threshold™ from Target around the base of your chicken's plants will help secure the roots into the ground, making the plants last longer while the chickens have fun.

If you're in the midst of chicken-proofing your yard and want to be sure you keep them safe, we have a complete and expert guide on protecting your backyard flock from garden predators, so you can rest assured they will be safe and happy in your yard.