A dog that can live with chickens

[Waves]

Hi all
We will probably take a puppy dog at the beginning of 2022 and I'm so excited about it!
I have 4 chickens that i love so much and that i absolutely don't want to cause danger for them: so i'd like a type of dog who i can easily teach to not hurt them. I'm searching for a small or middle dog. I'd like a lot to adopt an half breed dog, but i want to keep my chickens super safe so i think that it's better to buy a breed dog with clear personality traits...
Can you suggest me some breeds that are this type of dog? thank you so much

 

[ShrekDawg]

As long as you get it from a puppy and raise it with them almost any dog, even a rescue, should be fine with them. But I can think on some breeds and get back to you. I will say I wouldn’t risk an adult rescue with them but a puppy should be fine if you really wanted to do that.

 

[HKG]

A labrador. I have a 6 week old puppy and she is good with the animals already. We have her mom and she is very good with the chickens and lets my quail sit on her head. You just have to teach them when they are young have it around the chickens when its a puppy and if it tries to bite the chickens reprimand it by holding the muzzle.

 

[ShrekDawg]

A labrador. I have a 6 week old puppy and she is good with the animals already. We have her mom and she is very good with the chickens and lets my quail sit on her head. You just have to teach them when they are young have it around the chickens when its a puppy and if it tries to bite the chickens reprimand it by holding the muzzle.

I thought about Labs too or even a Golden, very gentle and sweet, but neither are exactly small. Although I guess a small female in either breed might fit the “medium” description. Or maybe a small spaniel?

I think most of the sporting breed group dogs would be a good choice despite being bred for bird hunting because they were also bred to work very closely with the hunters aka humans and they’re very smart so can learn the difference too.

There was someone on here that said that they hunted ducks or geese or something like that with theirs but that the dog knew the difference between the ducks they hunted and “daddy’s ducks” and that those ducks were absolutely off limits.

So it is definitely possible. Just takes a lot of training and time. Which, if the dog is bought as a puppy, they’ll have. A poodle might work too. They were originally retrievers and come in small sizes.

 

[Weeg]

A labrador. I have a 6 week old puppy and she is good with the animals already. We have her mom and she is very good with the chickens and lets my quail sit on her head. You just have to teach them when they are young have it around the chickens when its a puppy and if it tries to bite the chickens reprimand it by holding the muzzle.

Yep, this is the dog I would go with. All of my labs have had 0 interest in chasing the chickens, and our most recent pup cracks us up trying to play with them.
You can easily teach them no. Labs learn so so fast by simply telling them when they do things right. Our pup learned sit, stay and come just by reciting the command every time she did it, and rewarding her with praise.
They definitely aren't the "medium" dog you looking for, but if you find a breeder breeding smaller dogs, I bet a smaller female may fit the size. English Labs can be larger or thicker than American, so maybe a breeder that mixes the two would be a good choice. American Labs can also be more energetic, (ours is a ball thrower lol) were English can be easier going.

 

[RebelEgger]

I think almost any dog that has good training, is taught manners to respect boundaries set can be good around your chickens. We have 2 pit bulls (8 and 5 years old) that had never been around chickens until last year and they are very good with them. They have never gone after them or given them so much as a side eye. Our male loves them and likes to hang out with them, our female would just rather not have anything to do with them. Of course our cats may have trained them to respect the little creatures!

 

[HKG]

I think almost any dog that has good training, is taught manners to respect boundaries set can be good around your chickens. We have 2 pit bulls (8 and 5 years old) that had never been around chickens until last year and they are very good with them. They have never gone after them or given them so much as a side eye. Our male loves them and likes to hang out with them, our female would just rather not have anything to do with them. Of course our cats may have trained them to respect the little creatures!

Totally off topic but what breeds are the birds in the first and second pictures?

 

[RebelEgger]

Totally off topic but what breeds are the birds in the first and second pictures?

They are all easter eggers. When I got them I was told they could be any mixture of brahma, cochin, bielefelder, marans, barnsvelder and salmon favorelles.

 

[Duckbreeder2020]

@JadeFarms would have some great breed suggestions

 

[JadeFarms]

First of all, getting a dog as a puppy is the smartest option. You can train it to be around the chickens but not play with or eat them unlike an adult who already has a mind of its own.

I really recommend against a high energy dog. Having too much energy can make it harder to train around the chickens since it will want to play and run around them, doing that would not be good.

My two favorites are Great Pyrenees and Anatolian shepherds. They are large dogs though. They are usually raised around livestock/chickens really young, they aren’t too high energy and they are bred for that so it makes it much easier to train them. They are also an outdoor dog and are very strong so they will easily kill anything that tries to eat your birds.