Free ranging pros and cons?

[Beekissed]

As soon as you talk about training dogs for others you are in a much tougher realm than breaking them in for yourself. I can get my dogs to aid in defending my flock and even flocks of a couple close neighbors but once we get off reservation / dog's home range, the dog's relationship with poultry / livestock is much less predictable. My best dogs I have no problem with loading into a truck to get them into a new situation elsewhere. That is exactly the situation you are putting a dog into that is trained by one party to be subsequently kept by another party in a new location.

My approach to whole deal would be to make so that if I trained 10 dogs for others, 9 would get rave reviews with tenth killing chickens and causing me to take dog back. Costing would have to take that into account as that tenth dog would require additional investment and may never make in a situation with free-ranging poultry. Reputation would be something consistently at back of mind and that will come from feed back from others rather than my ability to sell my approach by actions of my own mouth alone with nothing to back it up.

You do realize that comment about training chicken dogs for folks and making a killing at it was a joke, right?

Not for one minute would I seriously think of doing such a thing, as what a dog will do for me is not exactly what a dog will do for another, less motivated and less firm, individual. Nor do I need money so badly that I would ever contemplate keeping large numbers of dogs here on my land and training them up for selling. It was a joke.....

Ha, ha...you know? A funny?

 

[aart]

Quote: I meant that I have no doubt that you could do this....but most people couldn't.

 

[Beekissed]

I meant that I have no doubt that you could do this....but most people couldn't.

I don't quite know how to take that, but you are probably right. It's not that I am any great dog trainer at all, as I just keep the goal in mind and work towards it, but I've tried to tell other folks how to turn a free dog/pup into a chicken dog and some seem to get all tangled up in puppy love and coddling, keeping the dog indoors and away from the job site, rendering the dog pretty useless for the job, or any job really, except holding the couch down and consuming food. Some persist in their training and finally turn out a dog that can work for them, but usually much later when the dog has some age on it.

The point is, pretty much anyone can do it if they put their minds to it and keep their minds on the goal, while making wise choices in breeds/types of dogs.

 

[bobbi-j]

I don't quite know how to take that, but you are probably right. It's not that I am any great dog trainer at all, as I just keep the goal in mind and work towards it, but I've tried to tell other folks how to turn a free dog/pup into a chicken dog and some seem to get all tangled up in puppy love and coddling, keeping the dog indoors and away from the job site, rendering the dog pretty useless for the job, or any job really, except holding the couch down and consuming food. Some persist in their training and finally turn out a dog that can work for them, but usually much later when the dog has some age on it.

The point is, pretty much anyone can do it if they put their minds to it and keep their minds on the goal, while making wise choices in breeds/types of dogs.

I think that's a biggie right there. My last dog - a black lab - was shown the chickens the day we brought him home as an 8-week old pup. He was taught from that day that chickens were not to be messed with. In 10 years, never had a problem with him. Our current dog - which was advertised as a golden retreiver/lab cross - has quite a bit of Redbone coonhound in him. A much more high-energy dog, independent thinker, yet eager to please. Just not as eager as my lab was. He has taken a bit longer to train...

 

[centrarchid]

You do realize that comment about training chicken dogs for folks and making a killing at it was a joke, right?     Not for one minute would I seriously think of doing such a thing, as what a dog will do for me is not exactly what a dog will do for another, less motivated and less firm, individual.  Nor do I need money so badly that I would ever contemplate keeping large numbers of dogs here on my land and training them up for selling.  It was a joke.....    Ha, ha...you know?   A funny? 

Greater effort required to indicate jokes to me on front end. Comment above indicative of a smart backside with the backside having greater weight than the smart.

 

[Beekissed]

Greater effort required to indicate jokes to me on front end. Comment above indicative of a smart backside with the backside having greater weight than the smart.

It's true, I may not be too smart...but I'm smart enough to get a joke... and even to make one.

 

[farmmom1]

How do I get my chickens to eat the layer food? They walk right past the food and oyster shell and head for the barnyard. I have 3 older hens die this summer, I believe from being egg bound. They were all 6 years old and this was the first year I let them free range. They eat grain in the barn that the horses have dropped from their feeders and even eat the barn cat's food.

 

[mclanea]

Late to this thread, but we have urban chickens and let them free range most days. My office is also in the backyard so it's somewhat supervised.

Pros
- They clearly like it.
- I sense that they eat a lot of bugs.
- It keeps the dogs entertained.
- It forces me to keep the yard cleaned up.
- Do they eat weeds? I'm weeding less.

Cons
- They make a mess. We have areas of mulch and they love to dig it out. They dig it out, I put it back.
- Landmines. I've tracked chicken poop in the house a few times.
- Need to keep an eye on them. One of my hens likes to climb and I think she'll eventually jump over the wall into the neighbors yard.
- They eat everything, including my veggies. That's not your salad girls... that's mine.

That's about it. I like them in the yard, it's fun for us. We're getting ready to greatly expand our little yard with raised garden beds. So I suppose one negative there is that we'll need to chicken-proof it.

 

[Beekissed]

How do I get my chickens to eat the layer food? They walk right past the food and oyster shell and head for the barnyard. I have 3 older hens die this summer, I believe from being egg bound. They were all 6 years old and this was the first year I let them free range. They eat grain in the barn that the horses have dropped from their feeders and even eat the barn cat's food.

Why would you want them to? If they are eating plenty out there on the land and only eating your layer mash as a supplement, that's a good thing. It's actually what I try to achieve here each year, letting them forage more and more and getting further away from a dependency on grain based feeds. What they find out there is better than what they can get in that feed any ol' day. I never have to feed oyster shell as the calcium and phosphorus they find while grazing is more than sufficient for their laying needs.

 

[country girl44]

I just started Free ranging my chickens (8) for the passed 3 days and they love it. It is amazing how much less food they eat, now that there eating grass bugs and whatever else they find. I lock them up at night, and they have already seen snow for the first time this year. The first two days it snowed they stayed in their coop even after I opened their door, so their not stupid! We have 3 dogs that are in the same area that my chickens are now free ranging in, which has been fenced in for the dogs for years before the birds came along. so there walking around in a pretty large area at the moment, which only means more chickens for me next year! This site has been my biggest help since I started raising chickens, and I'm so glad. And when the sun goes down, there right back in there coop all by themselves! which makes me even more happy.