M2WANDC - no, Rex isn't interested in chasing them or killing them - unless.....they get too near one of his tennis balls, or pine cones, or black walnut, or stick, or empty water bottle - that he is waiting for me to throw for him. Then he makes them move. He will sleep with an open box of baby chicks next to him and they are all present and accounted for the next morning. He gets a little obsessed about "guarding" anything I put in a kennel and I use kennels as my "hospital" quarters and put them in the coop. So on any given day there is an injured or recovering bird in one. Rex tends to want to chase everyone else off and away from the kennel. So every time I put a new bird in a kennel and he starts his "guard" bit, I have to tell him "it's okay - no guard." He still tends to guard a mean as_ rooster I have in a kennel in the yard waiting for his ticket to Camp Cold. Won't let anything come near it.
Actually both Shepherds and our catahoula mix stray are good with the birds. Both Scarlett and Lucy were duck killers when they first encountered the ducks. Lucy did her "kill the varmit" thing the first time we let our ducks out. She killed six swiftly without so much as a mark when we turned our back for a moment. Once fussed at and taken into the duck yard a few times she realized "hey, they are just like chickens, part of the family" and has never bothered one since. Then we got Scarlett and when she was about 6 months old the Mallards started flying out of the fenced duck yard. She caught and killed and ate one a day for three days in a row before we caught her at it. Same thing, we fussed at her, started taking her into duck yard to meet the ducks. She hasn't bothered one since. A couple of months ago I started letting the ducks out of the yard to free range since all grass was gone in their yard. They have been free ever since and living all over our yard and farm and pond and none of our dogs have bothered them.
We even have a chicken that sleeps in the shed with the dogs at night and eats out of their bowls when they are eating. All of the chickens, ducks and peacocks are very comfortable with all six dogs roaming amongst them. They don't even flinch when the dogs are in their coop.
Now little Prissy does love to do what I call a "fly by". She just can't help herself. She doesn't try and chase or catch them but she loves to start running at full speed and run right past one, startling it so that it jumps and flys and squawks. She seems to derive great pleasure at her little "fly bys" and doesn't seem remorseful at all. But she too is out there with them all day long and has never bothered one. She only seems to do the "fly bys" when I'm present, trying to walk down the hedge lined walkways with stuff in my hands. I dunno, maybe she thinks she's clearing the walk for me.
NOTtheMOMMA - you could easily build the stadium seating yourself. I did. I used four 2x4s. Cut one in half. Nail one end to the wall and let the other end sit on the ground at an angle. Do the same for the other half. Then use the three long boards and screw them in from the side. I used support boards under them since they were so long (8') and I knew there would be lots of heavy chickens on them. So simply measure and cut another board to fit under each long board in the middle. Really easy to do and holds lots of chickens. No one used it at first and everyone wanted the highest roosts. But once we got so many chickens and the dominant ones laid claim to the top roost, everyone else uses the stadium seating. I prefer it because you don't have to walk under them and get pooped on. I can also use it to check everyone over at night and pull out anyone needing medical attention. I can't do that with the high roost.
Right now I'm only getting a couple dozen eggs a day and I have a list of people who buy them. They all work at the feed store so I just drop them off when buying feed. I do have a lot of new birds that have just started laying so that number should really double very soon.
As far as the gardens, I did include a link to my vegetable garden and just recently posted pics of my herb garden on the same thread. I'm currently working on the front flower gardens, the formal "parterres". I got one out of six done yesterday. It's a lot of work to dig out 40 year old compacted dirt and weeds and start fresh. I'll post pics eventually.
Around here, it's always a work in progress.
