Chicken Fencing Required

It's reaching the point where I really need to fence in the chickens. They get into the back porch and sit on the bench by the door, leaving muddy footprints and dirt. They get into the garden edges and scratch the bark chips out onto the lawn. They knock over containers with plants inside. They scratch up my new hugelkultur garden beds, moving all the dirt off the buried wood. And so on.

And of course, they get on the window sills outside. Sometimes even pecking at the window to get a response!

Here at the lounge window:

And at the bedroom window. You can see my budget window insulation, done using bubble wrap.

And back in the lounge again.

At the moment, the chickens would have to be the most free range I know of. They never get locked in anywhere, or shut in at night. They just come and go as they please, including around the house. The garden edges (ignoring shifted bark and dirt) have never looked better. The weeds under the hedges have been scratched out, and are now clean and tidy (again ignoring dirt shifted to places like the driveway).

But still, I think a large fenced area around the orchard is where they are going to end up.. They get in everywhere, eating or damaging everything that isn't covered with netting eventually.