Great Pyrenees attacking and kills chickens, need help please.

[dawn secord]

we love the dogs

 

[drumstick diva]

Your dogs are beautiful Dawn

 

[Beekissed]

Hello,
I don't know if this is in the correct forum but:
We have a 4 month old Great Pyrenees and he has already fatally injured one and yesterday he killed and viscerated another hen.
We are at a loss as to what to do. We got him to help protect the chickens but never expected this to happen.
We are open to any and all suggestions please.
Thank you.

How long have you had him? What kind of training did you give him on the chickens? What other training did you give him as far as obedience? Are the chickens penned or free range? How long has he been around the chickens at your place?

These are all important things for us to know before we can give any advice.

 

[dawn secord]

Thank you!!!

 

[centrarchid]

Hello,
I don't know if this is in the correct forum but:
We have a 4 month old Great Pyrenees and he has already fatally injured one and yesterday he killed and viscerated another hen.
We are at a loss as to what to do. We got him to help protect the chickens but never expected this to happen.
We are open to any and all suggestions please.
Thank you.

You have gotten sound advice on the training part. Additionally look into how pup will be kept separate from birds when you are not present. Confinement for dog needed for two reasons, control over interactions with chickens while are absent and as an effort to prevent roaming later. My place of work has gone through a lot of LGD's (not just Great Pyrenees) used for guarding herds of sheep and goats. A problem many of the dogs posed was an inclination to roam. Each of our farms cover multiple hundreds of acres but if dog roaming too much, then a dog had to be swapped out. If you do not have a large property then roaming is likely to be a problem.

Something not mentioned in previous post is providing diversions that the dog can invest interest in. What I do is take my pups out for walks where we periodically walk among chickens paying them no mind but get excited about checking out new scents and sites not chicken related. Running across a wildlife track is awesome and can pay off later.

LGD's in general are boneheaded, as in not the easiest dogs to train. Some refer to it as being independent. My German Pointers and English Shepeherd (all used as poultry guardians) like telepaths once they mature, while the LGD's I am around might come up to you for a sniff, but otherwise not operate with you in a coordinated manner.

Great Pyrenees as a generality bark a lot. Impart for that reason, Akbash are used here instead when a lot of neighbors live close by.


Dog likely to be 2 years old before you can fully trust it. Killing birds now not the end of world. Almost all my chicken related dogs have killed chickens while dog immature. Once past that phase, they are generally more effective than dogs that never kill. I think the dogs learn chicken alarm signals that way which helps response to predators later. I expect my dogs not to be friendly to chicken eating wildlife and to kill it if they can.

 

[Jofo2021]

Hello,
I don't know if this is in the correct forum but:
We have a 4 month old Great Pyrenees and he has already fatally injured one and yesterday he killed and viscerated another hen.
We are at a loss as to what to do. We got him to help protect the chickens but never expected this to happen.
We are open to any and all suggestions please.
Thank you.

Shoot the dog. I had to do this yesterday. One they do it. They will continue

 

[Geena]

Shoot the dog. I had to do this yesterday. One they do it. They will continue

You suggest the OP shoot their 4 month old puppy?
Seems to me if your dog was killing your chickens then that was your fault, not the dog's. Dogs are predatory animals, chickens are prey. If you want to have both you need to either train or contain, you can't just blissfully expect that they should get along.