Dog Choice????

[Kevin565]

I second the Danes. Mine are excellent around all of my animals including the birds as well as children.

 

[cracked egg]

When I was a kid I had a black lab who used to carry a Brahma around in her mouth. She never hurt the chickens,d ucks,or geese and spent most of her time out with them. I used her for a hunting dog all of her life, she loved pheasants. she guarded my birds from all types of predators. I still chuckle thinking of her hearing a chicken cackle on tv and tearing the house up trying to get out the door tochase whatever was out in the birds. Seeing her pack that big Brahma around was quite the site also.
20 years later I have birds again and a new Weimeramer pup that lives in the chicken barn with the birds and has not hurt a bird yet in three months. I also have a chihuahua who runs around with the birds. I believe if they are started with the birds,the dog sees them as part of their pack and will protect them, it seems that way to me.

 

[Squawkbox]

Every breed of dog will kill chickens. They must be trained to leave the chickens alone.

It's easier to train people oriented breeds to leave the chickens alone, simply because they are easier to train to do anything.

It's a little unfair on a dog to expect it to put up with the abuse from 4 kids under the age of 6. I hope you intend to train the children to treat the dog with respect and don't expect the dog to tolerate pain and abuse from the children.

If you want protection from predators, you need a great big dog. Coyotes can and will kill medium sized dogs. Coyotes attacked my neighbor's Rottweiler, so it has to be a very large dog to protect from coyotes.

I suggest you choose a large breed that has a reputation for tolerating children well and then whatever breed it is, then train it to leave the chickens alone. I think your children are your issue; not your chickens.

Forget about getting a dog that doesn't shed. Not going to happen.

 

[nzpouter]

Training is paramount when you plan to keep dogs with other animals... your husband unfortunately, will need to participate/ commited to the program as well.

We have breeds of all sorts over the years, but we found the bull breeds (not recommending these for first time dog keepers) to be the easier to train and keep with other animals... not bad in taking care of predators as well.