A Chicken in the Garden

Last weekend I showed you a nice picture (below) of a nice head of cabbage alongside some fresh-pulled carrots.  The cabbage was about the size of a bowling ball.  Okay, maybe I exaggerated a little, but it was a nice-sized cabbage.

This Saturday morning after the morning milking duties, I had my mind set on going out and harvesting that cabbage.  As I walked to the cabbage row, thinking about how to best eat the cabbage, something caught my eye and stopped me dead in my tracks.  If you follow the fence line upward in the photo below, right past where the 4x4 post is, you can make out the back end of a Barred Rock hen walking briskly away from me.  That's odd.  I don't allow chickens in my garden.  I read a lot of people who say they have success with putting chickens in the gardens to eat bugs, but everytime that I have allowed chickens in my garden, they have eaten tomatoes, broccoli, peppers...  You name it - they've eaten it.

This time was no different, even though I didn't allow the hen in the garden, she ate my cabbages.

And not just one.  She flat ate the heart out of this one.

This must be the one she was just starting on when I walked up.

At this point i was seething mad.  I mean, you patiently grow this thing for months and the very week that it is time to harvest them, something gets in and eats it before you can.  How did the hen get in the garden?  I have 4"x4" heavy gauge wire fencing around three sides of the garden and the other side is a picket fence.

After surveying the picket fence, I see where she was getting in.  Maintenance is so important and my picket fence has succumbed to rot.  One of the pickets has rotted and fallen off, creating a 'chicken-sized' hole that is the perfect opening for the Barred Rock hen to gain entry to the garden.

The gate also has an opening created by rot by which the hungry hen can enter the garden and eat up my produce.

I cooled down a bit and didn't butcher the hen.  I did, however, toss her over the fence in a manner that wouldn't be defined as gentle.  The cabbage-fattened hen suffered no ill effects as she trotted off to tell the other hens in the flock of her cabbage adventure.

I wasn't going to throw the cabbage away and waste it.  I used a sharp knife to cut away every bit of the cabbage that came into contact with the chicken's beak. Chickens are not sanitary creatures. They routinely peck through cow patties in search of grain or other tasty morsels.  I'm not too fond of that beak touching what I'm going to eat!  In the end, I was able to save about 3/4s of this head of cabbage.

Although I didn't have the time nor the materials to patch up the fence in a professional matter, I had to do something to keep that hen out.  I found just what I needed.

I used two pizza boxes and stapled them over the holes.  This will work until I have the time to do a proper repair job.  Until then, the cardboard fence patching kit will have to do the trick for the short term.  If it is unable to stop the hen, I may have to resort to other means.  That is a polite way of saying that if the hen gets in the garden one more time, Chicken and Sausage gumbo will be on the menu.