Can I teach my dog not to want to devour my chicks?

[daisyhead]

We have chickens for the first time ever, they are now 11 weeks old and we've had them since they hatched. My 4 year old dog loves to chase all things moving - her favorite game is keeping squirrels out of our yard. Now she's taken to stalking our chickens. They are completely fenced off from her with a wood fence that she cannot get through but she jumps on the fence and barks at them constantly. I'm worried all her barking is going to bother the neighbors and stress the chickens. Is there anyway I can teach her to coexist peacefully with the hens? Also - I have considered using cayenne on the fence to keep her off of it but I don't really want to hurt her, is it safe to use?

 

[annek]

Some dogs never get along and yours sounds like it may be one of them. I would look at using a shock collar, you can set them low so they just give a light jolt. Your dog will eventually find a way to get to them if you don't break her now and even with a shock collar you may not stop it.

 

[daisyhead]

Quote:
That's what I'm worried about - my kids aren't the best at remembering to lock the gate and I'm worried that eventually it will happen when I'm not there to double check it.

 

[jsimplytx125]

Cayanne is totally safe, as a matter of fact, Horse Supply conpanies sell it mixed with water for spraying wood fences to keep horses from chewing. Also packaged for deer, rabbits, etc. to keep out of garden.

For a dog, I've found tabassco to works better. You might try to google Cesar Milano "train dog from chicken". There is a short video free online.

Good luck. we have a female Border collie that is very focused on killing.........we have decreased the "invisible fence" range of her collar, but woe to the chicken crossing that line.

 

[anngili]

The cayenne is safe to use for the dog; it would be just as if you accidentally sniffed some.

I hate to say it, but it sounds like your dog has way to high a prey drive to ever coexist with your chickens. I doubt even a shock collar set on high would deter it. You'll just have to keep them seperate. Any way you can put a second door on the coop so that your kids have to go through two doors to get in and out? It'd probably up the chances that they'd close at least one of the two. I'd also stick a sign up on the inside of the door letting them know that they ALWAYS have to lock the door.

I'd also try getting a hose, turning the water on high and hit him with it every (and I do mean every time he hits the coop. I think it would be a good idea to also confine the dog when someone's not out there to supervise. If that dog is launching himself at the wire, sooner or later he'll break through if you don't have the Fort Knox of chicken coops. Racoons can pull the staples holding hardware cloth to wood, so if your dog is the same weight as a racoon or more, he'll be able to do the same over time.

Best of luck!

 

[RunningChicken]

Our experience is that it just takes one mistake and the dog could get most of your chickens. For us, it was a neighbors gate left open and about 10 minutes of inattention on our part. The neighbor dogs killed 5 of our pullets in a heartbeat. Make SURE your chicken run is dog proof.

 

[mayden]

I let my chickens Free Range. I have 21 acres and they pretty much stay in the yard around the coop, garage and house. Unfortunately yesterday a dog came in the yard and killed one chicken and had another one down before I could chase him off. Here I am worried about all the critters like foxes, racoons and the like when a collared dog comes on my property and in just a very short time did damage. The one had a broken neck and the other one survived, looks like some ripped off feathers and a little surface bleeding. We put this chicken in an isolation cage and she seems to be getting along pretty well. In fact she wants out but I want her to heal a bit before I put her back in the flock. Come to find out it was a neighbors son's dog that they were watching. They didn't thing about the dog attacking my chickens. This same neighbor brought me a roo the day before. Apparently a friend of theirs wanted to find it a home since it was the only chicken they had and I had all pullets.

Anyway I am really nervous about letting them free range now since devastation can happen so quickly.

 

[stephhassler]

I think it almost totally depends on the dog. When we first got chickens we had a giant schnauzer. One shock with the shock collar was all it took. He left the chickens alone after that - I could even let him outside with them unattended. We now have a 6 month old irish wolfhound. I have shocked him 3 times on the highest number and yesterday he still killed a chicken. The difference between the two is the schnauzer is a working dog - wanting to work for humans. the irish is a sight hound - wanting to chase anything that moves. so, depending on the breed of your dog, you may or may not be able to break him of the chicken habit.

 

[Kotiya]

We had to slowly condition our dogs and cats to leave the chickens alone. When they were 1 wk old I let the animals near the coop, but if they showed any predatory signs I started yelling in my meanest loudest voice. They couldn't come back to see the chicks until they were calm. We started with the dog on a lease (or my hand in the collar) so I could jerk him back if I thought there would be a problem. My animals want to plz me so it works.
With time, we increase the exposure. My dog is curious and clearly had trouble as the 2wk old chicks would fly around the yard (free range). But I would yell at the dog if he turned predatory. he learned that if he wants to be around me (and I am often around the chicks), he can't behave that way. BTW he loves to lick their poopy butts.
We're at 4 wks now and I still stick close by them when they free range, but I trust my animals. I've done this with three other neighbor dogs (live in country and no one seems to contain their dogs). As the chicks get bigger, I know they will be able to peck back if the animals get too close.

This worked with the Cornish Rock X I had this summer. We didn't have any predator fatalities like I expected and they free ranged all day.

umm. someone had suggested (before we had chicks) that you could hang a dead chicken around the dogs neck. Sounds awful, but she said at first the dog they did this to loved the new toy. After a few days it stank so bad that it hated chickens and never went near the family chickens again.

 

[daisyhead]

Quote:
Yeah - I can confidently say we won't be trying that method.


Thanks for all the thoughts on the problem. I do think our dog is just predatory - I'm not sure I can train her away from that behavior. I think I need to reinforce the run with something. Right now the run is fenced off with chicken wire but it's in our side yard that is completely fenced off with it's own 6 ft wood fence so I kind of thought that would be sufficient. The problem would be if something (dog or raccoon) got through one of the two gates to that yard they could easily get through the chicken wire. I'd just hate for my kids to accidently leave a gate open and then feel so sad when they lose their chicks.

One more question - does the cayenne do anything at deterring racoons?