My dog and chickens

[Dom G]

Hey all, I have an Australian shepherd mix. I would love for her to be around my chickens so she can also go outside when she pleases. Right now I have them out at separate times which can be a hassle. I’m worried she’ll hurt the chickens. She has killed a rabbit before. Any tips/comments?

 

[nuthatched]

Do your chickens have a run?

 

[Dom G]

They don’t, not yet. Started building a new run for them on Monday. Should be completed by the weekend

 

[BlindLemonChicken]

My dog was not allowed out with my chickens unsupervised at first. she was a puppy though and has never killed anything. I would watch her with the chickens and if she chased them she got immediately put in the house because she can't stand not being with me. Now she is allowed out with for short periods of time. If your dog has already killed something I would build the run and never trust her alone with the chickens. You can try training her with them by keeping her on a leash at first but in my experience if dogs aren't trained from the get-go you can never trust them completely.

 

[Happy Novogens]

Just wanted to come on here and urge caution. We have a gentle Newfoundland. We wanted his presence to deter hawks whenever the chickens were out of the run. That was a mistake.

Our dog gave us every indication that he would be fine with the chickens. And he was... for months. I'm attaching some pics to show what I mean (and a couple videos). He never chased them, never growled at them. No indication that he would do what he did. He killed one of our chickens (did not eat). I was furious.

Now, we never let him out in the yard when the chickens are out of their run.

 

[Janeothejungle]

Go very slowly, start with your aussie on leash and under command. I'm assuming your dog knows basic commands like 'leave it'. While she's on leash, use high value treats to reward her for 'ignoring' the chickens. The goal is to get her relaxed and not focused on them. I used the leash time to practice other good behaviors with my dogs (paw, look, touch, etc) because by turning their attention to me (and not the chickens), I could reward them for both things (the behavior practiced and ignoring the chooks). Any time she tries to focus on or engage the chickens, use "leave it" and turn her in another direction and reclaim her attention. Eventually, you want her to be able to relax and ignore the chickens, as if they were just part of the scenery. It takes a lot of time and patience on your part, but it was worth it for our dogs. I still don't leave one of our dogs out unsupervised with the chooks, but the ignoring means he can go out to pee while the chickens are out and then come back in without incident. Good Luck!

 

[RojoMarz]

A few years back we adopted an adult JRT. He had never seen/been around chickens before. After a lot of work and controlled exposure, he's now safe to have out with the chickens. I do realize that things can happen as @Happy Novogens has mentioned. At this point, he is more interested in cleaning the run for me, instead of bothering chickens. One thing I did learn from him is that he responds better to commands in 3...instead of "Leave it", we use ”Leave it, leave it, leave it".

 

[rosemarythyme]

Since you're building a run (secure enough that a dog can't just bust through, I assume), as long as there's a strict rule about chickens out, dog is in / dog is out, chickens are in then there shouldn't be an issue. I have 3 dogs, all have killed and eaten smaller animals like rabbits (plus they all love chicken poop way too much), so I'm not interested in having them mingle.

 

[The head hen]

Hey all, I have an Australian shepherd mix. I would love for her to be around my chickens so she can also go outside when she pleases. Right now I have them out at separate times which can be a hassle. I’m worried she’ll hurt the chickens. She has killed a rabbit before. Any tips/comments?

The key to any breed is training! We used a method we found on youtube:

We kept the pups on leads around the chickens initially, and use the term "leave it" if there was an attempt to even walk toward the chickens. I would follow what the video demonstrated. I walked the pups around the chickens on leash and constantly told them to leave it, and my chicken! I got to the point of dropping the leash and letting the pups hang around the chickens while I was present. Eventually, I was able to remove the leash, and let them roam around free while I was present. There were a couple of times they started to chase the chickens but a quick reminder and they stopped. I started with 4 month old pups and by 6 months or so they were fine together.

The other thing that seemed to help, is I let the pups graze on chicken treats with the chickens (peanut butter bits for birds). They would be within in a foot of one another and there was no aggression or even acknowledgement of the hens by the pups.

Hope this helps.
Btw, my pups are now 10 months old now, and hang out all day with the hens. They are great Pyrenees/border collie mix.

 

[The head hen]

Just wanted to come on here and urge caution. We have a gentle Newfoundland. We wanted his presence to deter hawks whenever the chickens were out of the run. That was a mistake.

Our dog gave us every indication that he would be fine with the chickens. And he was... for months. I'm attaching some pics to show what I mean (and a couple videos). He never chased them, never growled at them. No indication that he would do what he did. He killed one of our chickens (did not eat). I was furious.

Now, we never let him out in the yard when the chickens are out of their run.

That is so weird that he only killed one chicken. Usually dogs kill all the chickens...for sport.
We lost a couple of chickens during training our dogs, but they didn't kill the chickens. They found the dead chicken. It was clear they were hawk attacks based upon the injury to the hen.