Turning into Fort Knox!

I believe I have bored hens - it's a first I have to say - but these hens keep escaping from the garden.  

Obviously 1/3 acre of free roaming garden is just not enough for them, even though this includes a lovely compost heap to dig around in and plenty of worm infested borders, hedges and bushes to keep them amused and bug hunting for hours on end.  As soon as the main gate it opened for outgoing or incoming cars they rush with all their lopsided might to find juicier worms in pastures new (actually, most of the time they head just over the road to a completely grass free garden (he hasn't yet laid his lawn)).

I have clipped the wings of three of them to no avail!  They still fly up onto things and then give me that "haha" kind of look.

Seeing all four of them in our neighbour's garden pecking around the bushes and then hearing reports from another than one hen blatantly went up to their patio door window to torment the dog made me decide it was time to take action.

The previous home owners left a load of fencing sections which have had their uses over the years.  I've used some up-ended by the fence either side of the main gate and two more at the side of the house to block the exit there (although I've seen one hen fly up and over it - clipped wings or not!).



It looks absolutely awful to the eye and Ben said it's like a fortress!  However, joy of joys we only had one escapie moment from Lola today - for the remainder of the day, all four stayed happily (or not) in our garden!