Good Fences

“Good fences make great neighbors,” I’ve heard often enough, but short of containing would-be-roaming suburban dogs I’ve not witnessed the phenomenon–until now. No, I’m not referring to Little April’s wanderings, although had she wandered into a garden she would have been fair game for any farmer whose property is “protected by Smith & Wesson.” No, today’s rant refers to Pretty Boy and his hens.

Some weeks back I had occasion to speak with our next-door-neighbor on the afternoon of the day the hens first migrated to that yard. Enthused, she told me about drinking her coffee in the yard and watching the hens scratch about in search of food. I believe I questioned whether she really wanted them there and was reassured that, yes, she “loved” having them about.

Since then I’ve been prompted by P&CW’s operations manager to go next-door and pick up after the hens lest they destroy our good relations with their leavings, but I’ve never quite gotten there. So far on the farm the only regular poop patrols I perform are clearing the pasture of canine piles, shoveling out the chicken coop, and picking up those green goose leavings strewn about the driveway. Any non-canine leavings on grass go toward fertilizing the farm. – Oh, wait, I do recall picking out the home pasture after Miss Lucy’s presence became overwhelming, but that was merely a consequence of too much horse in too little space and not a reflection on the quality of her leavings. To me, manure is fertilizer as opposed to waste, so I’m not as attentive to it as some would have me be.

So, on Monday when the neighbor drove me to the local veterinary hospital to get more medicine for Miss April–the truck keys having been put in some very safe place the night before, preventing me from being able to drive off the farm–our neighbor mentioned that she’d been unprepared for the chickens to leave piles as big as dog piles. (Understand, Dear Reader, that the neighbors’ dog is not a Great Pyrenees but rather a Chihuahua.) While I had not previously made the chicken-dog connection, I will grant that some chicken leavings–round brown piles usually with a splat of white on top–can approach the size of golf balls. Now, I wasn’t to worry about it, she told me, for they had very recently pressure washed the avian droppings from their place, but if the hens were to wander another yard beyond theirs, why, those neighbors might not be quite so understanding. When I said that I’d been thinking of fencing the birds onto our property, she quickly pointed out that they fly over our wire fences with ease.

Even so, with that conversation, my tentative plans to add woven-wire fence to the three strands of barbed-wire that separates our drives crystallized, and quite soon I began my campaign to return the birds to our yard. After gathering assorted lengths of the four-inch-square sheep-and-goat fencing and placing them near the barbed property divider, I ransacked the collection of organic pest-deterrents from the Biocontrol Network shipping carton in the garage. Soon a plastic-and-cloth Predator Owl, found and assembled, accompanied me up through the woods and around into the yard next-door. Indeed, the hens were nearly in the next neighbor’s yard, so the intervention had come none too soon. When I was close enough to catch the hens’ attention, I raised the Predator Owl, now mounted on a branch, and helped it to “fly” in their direction. No sooner had I begun the slow up-and-down motion with my arm than the rooster and his three hens streaked across the yard for home.

Next I unrolled wire fencing along the barbed-wire and mounted the Predator Owl menacingly atop the fence. Then I mixed some Goose Repellant with water and sprinkled the smelly concoction along the fence and around the front of our house. Not only did I aim to keep the birds home, but also I hoped to keep the geese from squatting about the house all day. To finish the day, I convinced the geese to settle in a pen up near the billy goats, a three-foot high chain-link dog pen installed beneath the hay-storage trailer. When the perimeter fencing is finished (soon), they’ll be confined away from the house. I want their home-base to be located away as well.

Finally, on Saturday morning I captured each bird in turn and clipped the flying-feathers on each wing. The chickens squawked and flapped–Pretty Boy managed to dislodge my glasses and sock me in the nose in his efforts to escape–but quickly forgave me and went about their business. The geese have longer memories. Today they are still being conditioned to consider the new pen their home and each time I approach the enclosure, they scrabble atop one another in their quest to put distance between themselves and me.

So far the plan has worked. The hens have stayed home all weekend. Hopefully this bit of fencing will restore the bottomless goodwill of our kind and giving neighbors. Chalk up one more farm lesson learned: Good fences do make for good neighbors.