Border Collie and chickens

[Wild Rose Farm]

Hello, Hi, Good Afternoon,
So... I am a new Mom to 10 three week old chicks. 4 Easter Eggers, 2 Barred Rock and 4 Silkies. We have a 12 acre horse farm and after 25 years of hounding my Hubby, we have a little flock! I originally had 6 Silkies but 1 died the first night. The 2nd just passed 2 days ago. He was 1/2 the size of the other Silkies so he was tiny tiny, But, he was eating and drinking with normal, abet minuscule, poops. You could tell something was not right, besides being small. He was so sweet and loved to being tucked inside my shirt. Nature can be cruel but there is a reason he did not make it. I do want to post pic's and see if who in my flock is M/F. I think at 5 weeks we would have a better idea.

OK, so the reason for the thread is we have 2 Border Collies, Duncan and Tavish, both 4 years old. Tavish has shown no interest in the chicks. I have the brooder in a sun-room off the back of our house. During the day I have an 8' round play pen for them. I have been pulling weeds for them and adding sticks and rocks. I also have an extra heating panel and heat light for the Silkies in case they get cold. Duncan is glued to them! I let him sniff each one as I move them them to the play pen. I have told them they are his responsibility and for anyone who knows BC's (Border Collies) knows he understands what I am telling him. He stays with them the entire time they are out of the brooder. The chicks are now coming to the fence and waiting for him to give them a sniff and lick. 2 days ago, Mabel, my Barred Rock flew out before I got the screen on top. Duncan took off but stopped in front of her and looked at me. My heart was in my mouth as I was thinking chicken nuggets, but he was such a good boy! He blocked her so I could pick her up from behind. Our farm is very open and we have a lot of predators. That is the reason Hubby said no for so long. There are a large numbers of fox, we do have a coyote around and the hawks are always circling above. We are building a very large enclosed run for them but I would like to have them out with me when working outside and have Duncan to protect them. Sooo.. after the very long narrative, should I let Duncan interact with the 3 week old chicks or wait till they are older. He would NEVER be unsupervised!! Am I crazy for even thinking this. I don't believe Duncan would kill them to eat but he could hurt them accidentally.Right now he lays next to the pen for 4 hours without moving. Does anyone have experience with BC's and chickens? Thank you so much!!
Kathleen, Tavish & Duncan

 

[ShrekDawg]

Hi! Welcome to BYC!! Sorry you never got a reply!! I don’t have much input but I would say that the sooner you get them used to each other, the better probably? And as long as he is okay with them now then I would think you could move on to supervised interactions. If not, I’d leave them in the pen for a bit longer. But it sounds like he is ready.

I would start on a leash first though and maybe just one or two chicks at first. And I would introduce each dog separately. Like work with one dog at a time. If you think he’s better off leash, then you could try that (I know some dogs hate leashes) but really, the leash gives you more control in case something were to happen. Not that it would but you never know.

But Border Collies are so super smart though and love having a job to do, as I’m sure you know, that I think he would probably be fine. He seems to have already taken it upon himself that watching them is his job anyway so I don’t think it would be too hard for him to adapt that to TV me being loose.

The only thing to maybe watch out for is that he doesn’t constantly try to herd them and keep them in one spot or bug them too much.

But they are beautiful boys and seem smart so I think they’d be okay.

Good luck!! And

 

[ShrekDawg]

@Wild Rose Farm oh and there is a section called “what breed or gender is this?” That you could post pictures of your chicks in to help ID them. It would probably be closer to 6-8 weeks though. Maybe longer for the silkies. They are notoriously hard to sex.

 

[RiverOtter]

Lovely dogs!
If they're trained to the point they will Down or Leave It, 20 feet away, off-leash, then anything you want to do, supervised, is fine.

If not, a pen or a leash.

Be aware that at adolescence, chickens seem to go through a brainless, suicidal stage, which is irresistible to a lot of dogs. But most BCs I've known are easily trained to be good with chickens.

 

[Wild Rose Farm]

Thank you! I see videos and dogs are walking around with the chickens. They could care less and show no interest at all. My concern is managing the interest. I will use a leash and debating a muzzle. All it takes is one second and I have a hurt or dead chick because Duncan does not know his own strength. He is used to horses and needs to be gentle and slow with the chicks. Thanks again!

 

[RiverOtter]

The trick is timing. My joke is me and God, we punish impure thoughts.

You have to catch them when they think about chasing a chicken. If you correct them after they've started, it's too late, now you're fighting excitement.

Happily, dogs are about as subtle as a tree falling on your house. First, they'll look at the chicken. Then the eyes sharpen. The ears prick. The body tenses. The head drops. Then they're off - but if you're watching you'll have caught it well before that. Corrections vary from dog to dog. My GSD, I said "Eh,eh,eh." Once. My daughter's standard poodle had to be nailed with an e-collar hard enough she squealed, and she still didn't learn for month and many repetitions. (Yes, she yipped, it hurt. Not as much as it hurts a chicken to be crushed to death in her jaws, which was the alternative every time)
And everything in between, although most dogs fall far, far further towards the "once or twice with good timing" end of the scale.

But no dog is untrainable. Today, the poodle can be called off from 100 yards away, off leash.

 

[BertyRoux]

I have a BC... And a GSD (widely stereotyped as chicken killers these days). I would wait until the chicks are a little older, personally, so they are bigger and less likely to get stepped on. My BC thought about gently herding some of our hens for a while, but chickens not being 'herd' animals it just frustrated him because they scatter in all different directions. Like herding cats.

It didn't take much guidance, these days both dogs pretend the chickens don't even exist and the chickens do the same to the dogs. My BC accidentally plowed into our big rooster last week because they were both too busy to acknowledge each other.

 

[HippieAtHeart]

We just got a flock of grown chickens and are currently dealing with this as well, so stressful! We have an Australian cattle dog and Boston terrier mixed with an Australian Shepard and they love to chase things, be it cats, birds, or anything really. The chickens are in their run this week as we just got them but are going to “free range” them in our fenced in back yard which is 1/2 acre tomorrow. I read an article that made sense to me and my dogs with their not perfect training. Know you’re not alone and I’ll let you know if I learn something helpful when it comes to herding dogs and chickens once they officially share the yard.

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