Dog poop?

[ladeefire]

My husband and I have a fenced (6 foot) backyard that the chickens do not have access to. THe reasons is because thats where our great danes potty. Its overgrown with weeds and we were starting to think that it would be so good for the girls to be pastured there for a few days because there are new grasses etc... the only problem is... thats where my dogs "go".
My dogs are Rawfed. they eat meat...

Even if I clean it up i still worry... Normally rawfed dog poops just disappear in a few days (about 10) so there really isn't alot of worry about cleaning the yard up.

So i shouldnt put the chickens in that area right?

 

[espressola]

My older chickens freerange all over our ranch and the dog potty area isn't too far from their coop. Our dogs (no Danes at the moment

) are partly raw-fed too. Our little chicks will go outside (their coop is VERY roomy) when I finish the run and get it covered (we have many hawks), and then when they are larger will free-range too. I wouldn't worry too much. I do scoop every other day or so, noone has seemed interested in the dog poo, or anyone else's really- we have horses and right now there is a llama contentedly chewing on my front doormat (we've got twelve of those). I think you'll be OK.
Patty N. ;-)

 

[ladeefire]

Really? are you sure? they eat raw meat and bones...

 

[espressola]

My dogs eat raw meat and bones too (and some kibble) and I've not been concerned, nor have my chickens been interested. I do scoop regularly, for aesthetics and to keep my kids out of it, but I am not concerned. Your chickens could easily find feral cat poop, for example, right (raw mouse)? Or some other such thing. Our dogs' meat is human-grade, as I expect yours is too. Freezing the meat beforehand will further protect the dogs from worms. I'm not too worried about worms, I'll probably check the hens' poo in the fall and worm then if necessary. What specifically were you worried about the chickens finding in the dog poop?

PS- my llama was lying ON the doormat, of which I own one, not chewing it but it's cud... for clarification. My writing seems to be quite erratic these days...

Patty N.

 

[cybercat]

Chciekns are omnivores so eat meat. I would not worry about a cleaned up dog area that is eating raw. But if it really bothers you here is a suggestion after picking up after the dog water the area down so any residue gets washed into the ground.