Chickens and dogs

Ahhh love your Doxie checking on his chickies!

I have 3 boxers, and they have gotten 2 chickens, we put our chickens (14 of em) into a regular fence for about 3 days while we did work on there coop. 2 of them stuck there heads through the fence, and our dogs bit there heads right off.....glad it was fast and easy for the chickens. but my dogs will eat our chickens. the cat on the other hand...the dogs love em....

Our Rottie mix is wonderful with our chickens. She was slightly annoyed when my daughter's ducklings followed her around for 30 minutes when we first got them, but just looked at me to rescue her. I have no idea of her background before 18 months since she was a rescue, but we couldn't ask for a better dog. She has only chased our birds once, and that was when the Rooster and the duck were fighting- early in our chicken experience. I thought she was going after them, but it turned out she was just breaking up the fight like she does with our kids. LOL. (Rooster and duck get a long now... too well, but that's another story.) She came immediately when I called her off. While I don't leave her purposely unsupervised with chicks, she's around them a lot and will smell them and then walk away or "guard" them in the yard as they walk around when I'm outside.

Our Schipperke (~15 lbs) will chase the hens (never the Rooster or duck) on occasion, but she's cornered them before and then she runs away, but usually they just fly if they see her coming in a chasing mood. It seems they can tell. She's just ornery and likes to frustrate me. She NEVER does it unless she knows I'm watching. Brat.

Our wimpy, old, mini daschund (~6 lbs), on the other hand ate a chick once. Walked up to it calm as can be and swallowed it whole. The kids were cleaning out the brooder in the utility room and left the door cracked. After we all got over the shock and horror it was actually somewhat amusing. We never gave her the chance again and she passed away earlier this year.

Many years ago I had a beagle/basset mix and my neighbors had chickens. When ever they could not get the chickens back in the pen after letting them run around the yard, I would bring Joey over and tell him "git the chickens!" He would have a ball chasing them around the yard till they all ran into their pen where he was not allowed to follow(which they knew so they went there to get away from him).
As he ran into the flock the chicken that ran the fasted became his target of choice. He never harmed them, but he might come back with a few down feathers stuck to his mouth and I swear the biggest grin you ever seen. He would just harass them till they all got into the pen, it was a perfect system.

Fast forward to "now", no more Joey but I'm the one getting chickens. Now my neighbors have to large herding dogs, so I'm not sure how that is all gonna play out. I'm hoping that between their herding instincts and lots of supervised interaction I can get to the point where they will ignore the girls if they are loose when the dogs come out to play.

ll said:

A photo of our chicken & our dog...

Click to expand...

cuttest thing ever!!!!...trust at their best.

I have 6 dogs. Some will chase the chicken some dont. I'm raising a mutt to be my side kick in my night rounds. I live alone and have no neighborns. My doberman pinsher is the ideal for that but she "plays with the chickens" . The mutt have learned to ignore the chickens so when i go at night to close coop doors and feed cat and everything he follows me making me feel a bit safer. During the day the mutt is more interested in eating the chicken feed than the chickens...he even eats cracked corn. And the poop is his other thing. Nasty.