LGD and Chickens

[RobinClary]

I have a 10 month old Great Pyr that has been with us since he was about 10 weeks old. He has been kept in a pen adjacent to the barn and paddock unless I'm at the barn for chores and training. We have sheep, chickens, guineas, a donkey (and now foal!) and a couple barn cats. Chief has been allowed to mingle with the animals and learn to respect the ram and jenny. When he was about 6 months old, a chicken ducked under the door into his pen, with the unfortunate result of him playing with it to death. I blocked off access, but somehow, a couple months later, a small hen snuck in. This one survived. He doesn't intentionally harm them. There were no evident bite marks. When Last month, we started leaving him out in the pasture at night and only have him staying in the pen during the day when the chickens were free ranging. Two weeks or so ago, we let him out for a longer portion of the day, and kept an eye on him. He totally ignored the chickens, so we let him have more and more time out. Well, he got to another chicken.

I need advice! Is he just still too young to be left out? What are suggestions for getting him to leave the chickens alone?

 

[azygous]

Consistent, persistent training.

 

[centrarchid]

I would expect the on and off again interest in chickens through about 2 years. If it continues there after, then try another dog. Some LGD's may not be up to task, at least following means I know of.

In the last week or so, my place of work had to put down an LGD that periodically killed goats. He was about 4 years old. The much older female he was with did not cause such problems. I am not certain of corrective measures that where attempted.

Another pup (Akbash x Maremma cross) about 10 months old is in pipeline with a sibling to be a possibly poultry guardian. He and possibly brother still kills birds. Rearing system there differs markedly from my approach, but does have some common features with yours. Those pups are housed near chickens currently but do not have real access to them except when chickens "escape" like yours did. Could still work in the end.

My approach does have things in common with yours also. Namely young dogs out only at night when birds safely on roost. Initial day time interactions have direct supervision. Not relevant to you, but I prefer young dog not in company of other dogs when with chickens.

Striking dog and yelling does not work well. I almost ruined a dog with that approach. Since, I show minimal reaction other than getting a little growly in voice. When I get growly without an obvious threat, the dogs get scared. The dogs also know when they do a no no.

What seems to help is me working around birds a lot without paying the attention. Some of my birds are super tame making that approach particularly effective.

There does appear to things that set my dogs off to cause trouble. First is weather change, especially cooling down. Then there is a juvenile chickens being weaned or going through some other change that is associated with more vocalizations. Finally is a chicken out of place like possible here with multiple flocks. My dogs have issue with barn chickens coming into yard. I also cannot trust my dogs with neighbors chickens.

I have been working with dogs and chickens for a good while and still learning. Will be training up two pups in parallel soon which violates preferred approach. They will be housed separately and released on alternating nights. On will go to work where it will be paired with young male mentioned above. Neither dog will have direct access to birds they protect as electric fencing will block access. Hope is dogs nearby will help reduce problems anticipated with raptors that are likely to include even Bald Eagles.



I am doing a little research myself trying figure out how to get the dogs more reliably into poultry guardian mode.

https://sanangelo.tamu.edu/files/2013/08/Livestock-Guardian-Dogs1.pdf