He Keeps Chickens Safe With Pinwheels

He Keeps Chickens Safe With Pinwheels FARM HOME Miscellaneous When Andy Wessel of Glen Allen Va started his pastured poultry egg business he named it Pinwheel Farm because the fans of a pinwheel represent the circular patterns of nature he copied including rotational grazing It has another meaning as well since he uses simple pinwheels to chase off hawks and coyotes when he has livestock on pasture Wessel has chickens on two different properties that he visits each day to do chores - feed water collect eggs and move the coop/fencing once a week There were coyotes and hawks in the area so he needed to take some preventative measures In his research he read about the pinwheels online “The theory is that the reflective light messes with the birds’ eyes ” he says Wessel zip-ties and/or tapes the pinwheel sticks to 12-ft long pieces of bamboo that he got from a friend He slips the bamboo over rebar he jabs into the ground They’re easy to pull up and move when the coop is moved He also attaches pinwheels to the tops of mobile coops Wessel notes the he only lost one chicken to a hawk that managed to get outside the fencing He uses a “sparkly holographic pinwheel reflective whirl pinwheels” he purchased on Amazon for about $2/each Contact: FARM SHOW Followup Andy Wessel Glen Allen Va ph 412 526-1133; pinwheelfarmrva@gmail com

To read the rest of this story, download this issue below or click here to register with your account number.