Living with the predator.......

[Beekissed]

I have two very prey-driven, part bird dog breeds and they are full-time guardians of my free range flock. No incidents in many years of doing this with my dogs. One came already trained, the other took about 20 minutes to train to the flock. I leave them with the flock 24/7, 365. I have gone on vacation many times without worry and I've never had a predator except a black snake and a one time hawk.

I will be getting a 9 mo. old Great Pyr soon that has never been acclimated to chickens and I will use the same methods of training on him. If he's smart and learns it, he stays. If not, he goes. It's that simple.

I use the pack leader method of training and it has worked for me so far.

 

[Shoebob]

I am new to the raising of chickens. My flock of three were either killed or chased off by my coon dog. I have chosen to get rid of the dog and get more chickens. I feel your "dread" sense when the dogs look at the flock.

 

[babsbag]

Years ago my husband and I bought 12 chicks. We had 2 dogs, a lab mix and a collie/shepherd mix. We had the chickens for about 6 months and then...

Our dogs were always outside with us and the chickens and I don't think they ever looked at the chickens. We were WAY out in the country, no fences anywhere. We did have a chicken coop and a dog run, but we let them out together all the time.

One day we went to town, and left them out together. We came home to 1 chicken, and 2 very satisfied dogs. I don't think they ate any of them, just killed them and left them.

We were newly weds, this was about 30 years ago. I had no experience with chickens or dogs. The thought never crossed my mind that mayhem might happen when I wasn't there.

Now I have 2 border collie/queesland mix dogs. They are smart, and could probably be trained not to chase chickens, but I would never trust them out of my sight. They like to "herd" and chickens don't take to well to the little nips and pokes. My chickens live with my goats, behind an electric fence, with their own coop at night. There is another electric fence around the coop to keep the goats out of it. The dogs live in the house, in thier run, and not near the chickens. My advice is to keep them apart, especially when you aren't around.

 

[rino081]

chicks are home....finally! long story grab some coffee

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=308475

Anyways, I introduced the dogs to them.

First just through the brooder. I let the dogs smell around the brooder and look in. They were pretty calm considering they are still puppies (pointer 1yr, pit 9 mos).

Once they were calm enough I pulled out a chick and held it at their level so they could check it out. They looked, sniffed and maybe even licked

All in all they stayed relativley calm throughout the meeting and never showed aggression.

It's a small step but a good one. Nothing in their demeanor was bad, so I will continue to take small steps with them.

 

[nivtup]

We have two small dogs, a Corgi and a Rat terrier.

Both were acclimatized right away.

They now play guard dog, well as much as they can.

We did have one incident when the Corgi was young, he crawled in the brooder to be with the chicks. He did not intend to hurt them, however he did squish one on accident.


I would be very careful with them for a long time.

 

[TriciaHowe]

I put a double string hot wire around my coop. Also when my chickens and ducks are free ranging my dogs are penned. They will not go after the birds when we are out there with them but will stalk (and kill) them if we leave them unsupervised. I have a Golden Retriever mix, a black lab mix and a beagle. The beagle doesn't mess with the birds at all and prefers to ignore them.