A newbie question about free-range and lawns

[activia]

Thanks for the welcome! I am very afraid that the dog is going to attack the chickens. Which is why the dog/chickens would always have a fence between them. Although I'm still very concerned with my dog going crazy and never stopping barking at them!!!! She is going to drive me insane if I really decide to do this, for that I am sure. There was once a possum in the yard, she scared it up the fence, it sat on the fence while she barked for 15 min in the pouring rain! I had to go out there as my calls were no matter to her. It took some doing just to get her away from t he thing, then the thing would not leave!! I had to carrouel her inside. She has a crazy prey drive! It's VERY strong. She goes after cats like she is nuts except my two resident cats who stand their ground and she knows the rules. So training is going to be long, hard, and she is going to try my patience I am sure about that! Even then I have a feeling just letting her outside will be no more as she will just run to the coop and start barking if I am not supervising! Ugh... this is the #1 reason why I am very hestitant about doing this.

 

[Tressa27884]

Know that your chickens will get over the fence unless it's really tall. My standards have no problem getting on the top of a six foot fence.

 

[activia]

Know that your chickens will get over the fence unless it's really tall. My standards have no problem getting on the top of a six foot fence.

mine is 8ft but i was thinking of wing clipping

 

[centrarchid]

I have about 18 acres. During growing season I have multiple cohorts (individuals of same hatch date forming a subflock) resulting a total flock size peaking at about 120 juveniles in 2011. They could go as far as they wanted but each subflock had a home range that was centered on a feeder and a cover patch. Any location where birds loafed / loitered the soil was exposed by repeated foraging an dust bathing. To control damage I resorted to periodically moving feeders which subflocks followed. They followed very effectively so long as cover was near by. When plants were growing slowly due to heat and / or lack of rain, feeders had to be moved more frequently to limit damage.

My dominiques which repressent the bulk of the free-ranging birds barely used 4 acres of the available area while the more mobile wild-type birds worked a much larger area, especially when I dispersed feed / scratch more.

 

[Smiles-N-Sunshine]

I hate to sound all "Negative Nancy", but housing chickens near a dog with a strong prey drive is just asking for trouble. From what I've read, the prey drive is nearly impossible to train out.

I suggest starting with only three hens, just in case....

 

[centrarchid]

I hate to sound all "Negative Nancy", but housing chickens near a dog with a strong prey drive is just asking for trouble. From what I've read, the prey drive is nearly impossible to train out.

I suggest starting with only three hens, just in case....

I have been doing so for 35+ years and my fore fathers did same. Weakness in system is not dogs tendencies / breeding, rather it the improper management of the dog which often means manager does not know what they are doing.

Prey drive is easy to train out even with bird dogs. Thinking or assuming it can not be done is biggest barrier to making a livestock guard dog.