Topic of the Week - Dogs and Chickens

[MissJane]

My boy passed the hardest test possible for a dog and chickens. He found a deer skull while we were out in the woods and brought it home to chew on. The hens must of thought it smelled wonderful because they were very interested in it. I watched my "pit bull" American Pit Bull Terrier ignore the hens until they tried to get him to share. He gave a little growl then got up with his bone and took it to the other side of the yard. Of course they followed him! He quickly moved again and the hens gave up pursuit.
I'm not one to be to concerned with the breed of a dog. But everyone should try to know the specifics. It helps determine training. I knew the breed I have would have a strong prey drive but they also have a strong desire the please their person.
I grew up with German Shepherds and Rottweilers and we always had all kinds of farm animals and strangers/guests around. We never had any problems. Maybe I'm lucky, but I'd like to think it's the training.

 

[BrinaChick]

My Farm Collies are incredible with the chickens and every other kind of farm animal! We are expecting 2 litters in May 2017, please email me if you would like to reserve a puppy, available pups are going fast! onegoodfarmdog.wordpress.com is my website.

 

[sunnychickville]

My dog knows she is supposed to leave chickens and chicks alone. But she knew that these guys were somehow different... She's doing a little butt-sniffing-investigatin'!

 

[Phoenixxx]

Most chicken owners have a dog or two in addition to their flock. Some keep and train their dogs as livestock guardians or flock watchers, while others find they can't trust their dogs with their birds. Keeping these two species together can be done very successfully though. I would like to hear from all you dog and chicken owners what advice you have and what your experiences were when it comes to keeping dogs and chickens together, or at least in harmony. Specifically:

- How do you/did you train your dog(s) not to kill or mess with your chickens?
- What is the best/most effective way to deal with/retrain a dog that killed birds already? (No cruel or inappropriate suggestions, please… Let's keep this thread friendly and informative)
- Tell me about livestock guardian dogs (LGD's)
- Are some dog breeds more or less prone to be a problem around the flock?



For a complete list of our Topic of the Week threads, see here: https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/topic-of-the-week-thread-archive

Oh boy, do i have stories! I have 2 very beautiful kuvasz ladies and they do a wonderful job! Just tonight, an up-and-coming roo was being a bully. The ladies were out, and he went after one of my young bantam dark cornish cockerels. Hearing the distress cries, both ladies jumped to attention and raced over to where the problem was occuring... Now, my youngster is still a pup (20 months) and still prone to chase, but i stayed silent and just watched to see what she/they would do... The ladies just took up positions slightly to either side of the bully, about 10' away: more than enough to intimidate him! The young cockerel was relieved, and ran one direction whilst the bully ran the other. The ladies followed the victim, and at one point i thought Arya, my puppy, would give chase - but she just took an aggressive pose as she watched the little bird rejoin his group. I was SO proud to see Arya finally "get it"! Athena, on the other hand, has quit chasing 99.9999999% of the time since she turned 2 earlier this year.

Have my dogs killed chickens? YES. Athena was raised at home, alone, with only the birds from 11 weeks until i retired from my job when she was about 6 months, spending about 11-12 hours a day by herself in one pen, birds adjacent in the other. She was lonely and very bored. The birds were good at flying out of their enclosures, and at 5 months so was athena (except she climbed, not flew). One day i came home from work and found a RIR pullet dead and being munched on by Athena. This happened a few times, actually. Each time i would take the bird, express my disappointment and walk away, then denying my pup of further positive attention until she showed remorse.

However, during this time i was also constantly hatching and brooding chicks. I didn't know much about LGDs, other than that you're supposed to toss them in with their stock as puppies and leave them to it. I involved Athena with the hatching and brooding process as much as possible - i allowed her to take "dirty" (ones coated in membrane) chicks straight from the incubator and clean them up on the couch prior to putting them under the heatlamp in the brooder. I also allowed her - under my supervision - to remove babies from the brooder for bathing, even when it was unnecessary... i just wanted her to develop a "motherly" connection to the chickens.

Chicken-chasing was an issue. Despite my efforts, Athena liked to chase when they ran. She would haul her catch under a bush or tree for a thorough bathing. However, adult chickens don't take kindly to this and they fight. When they fight against all those pointy teeth, they die. I really don't think Athena understood what was happening. I could see it in her face, actually - she really didn't get it. So, now i had to train Athena that it's NOT okay to grab chickens, which is the opposite to what she learned whenever i hatched chicks. Conundrum!!!

Persistence in training calmed that, and at 10 months we acquired 8-week-old Arya (named after the game of thrones character - and quite aptly so!). Arya came mid-winter, when chickens were locked up permanently due to snow. The first time the chickens were let loose, arya - at about 9 or 10 weeks - promptly herded them back into the coop! She started zig-zagging wide, gradually narrowing her zig-zag until all the chickens were back in! (And the kuvasz is not known as a herder, fyi, even though i have read that they did perform that job alongside protection in their history.)

Arya's herding progressed into chasing just when we were getting athena off the chasing. This did not work well, for the most part. If a chicken was loose when it wasn't supposed to be, the two pups would corner it from opposite directions; the "gentle" and "drop the baby" commands came in handy here! Albeit, if anyone knows LGDs, commands only go as far as what they believe to be the correct action! But, no losses here - i would commend the girls on a job well done, take the baby and toss it back into the run.

Before i continue, the experinced farmer who got Athena's twin sister taught me this: if your pup is doing something wrong, act like mama dog by pinning it to the ground by the nape while saying a firm "no!" However, as much as this works wonders, it only works if you can catch the pup in time for this to be effective. x1 for Athena, x2 for Arya - kuvasz are FAST! Even at 10 weeks!!!

This story/lecture is not yet finished, i will continue it hopefully this evening. Timevl to put quail to bed

 

[Phoenixxx]

Okay, I'll try to keep the rest short, ha ha!
While teaching Athena that it's okay to handle the babies may have been a mistake (because she thought it was okay to handle the grownups), I am glad i did it. The connection i had hoped for was developed and she takes her job very seriously! One time when the girls were in but the chickens still loose, a fox stole a hen... Boy, was Athena ever upset! I could not get her to calm down AT ALL, so i removed her fence collar, leashed her up and said, "okay - let's see how you are at tracking." Relieved that she could do something about the situation, she dove into the woods right on the fox's trail. She found the hen and indicated it to me so i could recover it. She wanted to continue after the fox, but it was dark and cold, and i had no desire to traipse any deeper into the swamp. This is just one example of how strong her connection is to her birds!

So, you can see that training these dogs takes a lot of work and things WILL go wrong with the first one, (the ones after learn by observing the older dog so Arya really hasn't had to have much training by us) but also that, in the end with the right breed and enough effort, things will go very right

I also learned that certain myths are, indeed, myths:

"Once a chicken-killer, always a chicken-killer." FALSE!!! Athena has killed - and eaten - several during puppyhood, but now the only chasing she does is after predators!

Also, some say you can't feed your dog raw and expect it not to kill on its own when it gets hungry. This is also untrue. Any bird that dies goes into the freezer, excess roosters get slaughtered, halved and fed fresh to the ladies. When they get hungry, they point at their bowl or the bag of kibble and then look at me; they do not take it upon themselves to hunt their own meal!

Raising a true LGD has been both a struggle and a pleasure! I hope my stories will help any new LGD owners through training their pups.

 

[BrittanyG1122]

Most chicken owners have a dog or two in addition to their flock. Some keep and train their dogs as livestock guardians or flock watchers, while others find they can't trust their dogs with their birds. Keeping these two species together can be done very successfully though. I would like to hear from all you dog and chicken owners what advice you have and what your experiences were when it comes to keeping dogs and chickens together, or at least in harmony. Specifically:

- How do you/did you train your dog(s) not to kill or mess with your chickens?
- What is the best/most effective way to deal with/retrain a dog that killed birds already? (No cruel or inappropriate suggestions, please… Let's keep this thread friendly and informative)
- Tell me about livestock guardian dogs (LGD's)
- Are some dog breeds more or less prone to be a problem around the flock?



For a complete list of our Topic of the Week threads, see here: https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/topic-of-the-week-thread-archive

My German Shepherd is a chicken murder. He’s got two of my girls. We worked in the fall on trying to snap him out of it. I would let them free range and then have him on a lead. If he got interested I’d say “leave it” and praise him when he distracted himself from them. I really didn’t think it was effective until yesterday when the wind completely blew open my (very heavy sturdy coop door (shed is 100% dedicated to chicken coop) the dogs were out and I was napping inside. When I woke up to the sound of my chickens very close to the house I panicked and ran out yelling “chief leave it” mind you this was me in my room yelling through the kitchen and living room as I’m running out back and he hadn’t touched one of them. The worst that Happened was my Dixie girl went to hiding for a couple hours and made me sad bc I didn’t know what happened to her. Anyways I am so proud of Chief for remembering to leave those girls alone. He got treats and so did my chicks

 

[RWise]

I have Rat terriers, 3 of them, my birds free range as well. The larger one (almost 40 lbs) my big rooster (at the time) did not like near his hens, and would peck him on his but as he went by. The rooster was a black australorp, and one fine day the dog turned to defend himself. I just new at his point I had a dead roo. I was pleased that he just put the bird in its place and moved on. This happened one more time and that rooster left the dog alone! I later let him go with some old hens.
I do feed the dogs and the birds in the yard and have seen many times the girls gathered around a dog watching for a small bit, they can dive in and grab, to hit the ground.
It is nice when everybody gets along!

 

[offleash]

We have a border collie/amstaff mix. She's been trained to handle kittens, our (pet) rats and foster chicks before. Once we get our new chicks, we'll start with a slow introduction, them on our lap with her allowed to sniff as long as the chicks seem ok with it, then will slowly progress to letting them roam together. They won't be around each other unattended for probably about a year, or until I am comfortable with it, depends on her. This is how we handle introducing any small animal to her. She was trained to help comfort and nurse foster kittens (3 weeks old and up) and took to it incredibly well, however she does NOT like the neighborhood cats, squirrels or birds. It seems as long as she identifies them as 'hers" she is fine. Our chicks arrive in a month, will update when we get them!

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

My male catch bulldog Hoss and my coon hound Faith never killed a chicken, but they killed 3 guineas. They got the guineas tied to them until they rotted. Its an old farmer’s tale that does indeed work. Afterwards they got along with the guineas and took on a protective stance for the chickens

Hoss was a heck of a good guard bulldog in this prime. He’s probably been the biggest reason I don’t have varmints mess with my free range chickens. He free ranged my farm 24-7 with my coonhound. The hound found and bayed the varmints and the bulldog killed them.

Brunson is Hoss’s replacement. He gets daily socialization with all the poultry. Worst he does is try to play with them and he does try to catch fresh bitties. But for the most part he’s learning well that the poultry is a part of the farm.

I do believe that dogs are the key to free ranging chickens with minimal predation losses. The dogs need to free range 24-7. For the record, for the past year that I’ve been raising poultry on my deep woods, predator rich, homestead, I’ve lost one hen to a hawk, one guinea to a snake, and that’s been the extent of my losses. My flock is on track to nearly double it size naturally, so my flock is on its way to be a renewable resource for me. Thanks to the dogs.

 

[DiYMama540]

I have 2 dogs and 1 cat. Scratch the cat, she's deathly afraid of the birds, but she has proved to be an awesome huntress of small pests and predators.
My dogs are both big indoor babies, but go out with me during the day and at night to use the bathroom. The Great Dane is old, and shows zero interest in the birds or anything else that may come on the yard.
BUT... my Terrier mix is young and fearless! She doesn't bother my flock, but she is always on the hunt for anything amiss. She's taken down possums and skunks Luckily haven't had to deal with anything bigger than that coming into our yard!