For the past year or so I’ve had a hen tunnel running through the path of the vegetable garden. Whilst it’s lovely communing with my girls whenever I’m working, it’s a pain in the butt to get past and using a wheelbarrow has been out of the question.

However, they’ve moved to a new area of the garden. We bought a wonderful 50m electric net fence, a solar battery unit and an electric gate. The hens have now moved in, to their great delight. Each hen has had one wing clipped so she can’t fly over the fence and off into the Languedoc hills. Cuckoo has already had a ‘bite’ from the fence when she decided to stick her head through to pick a tasty morsel from outside the 150m2 run.

Their house has been shunted to its new spot with much shimmying about. The entire house became like a wobbly jelly when we tried to wheel it from a-b, as you’re supposed to be able to do. However it’s all been put back together again.

I’m sure the girls will reduce the grass to dust in a short while, but at least we can move them to a fresh spot reasonably easily.

If you’re interest the equipment came from Cloture Electrique which sells the Voss system. I did lots of research and this was the most highly recommended and best quality.

I’m praying the fence will keep the hens in and the dogs out. The dogs have been introduced and I’ll monitor them until they’ve each been bitten by the fence. Then they’ll keep a wide berth.

Please excuse my filthy gardening shoes.