My dog and my chickens

[McGregor]

I have a young dog a couple of years old who loves chasing squirrels, I was wondering if anyone has advice on how to get her comfortable around the chicken coop and not a threat to the birds. I have it fenced off currently.

Thanks

 

[sourland]

Is she obedience trained ? Only let her near the chickens on lead, and if she shows aggression or excitement use the 'leave it' command. Electric fencing (hot wire) on the pen will discourage her and predators.

 

[LizzzyJo]

Time, patience, time, patience, repeat.

This is how I got my dog to ignore my free range birds (dog is german shepherd/border collie mix).

Take her out on leash and hold her away from them until she is calm/bored. Then move closer and wait until calm/bored. This can take weeks of daily sessions. Eventually, you want her laying down on her side (I held mine to the ground) while the chickens walk around and on top of her. hold until calm/bored. It's about submission to you as pack leader. Once the dog understands that the chickens are under your protection, then she will leave them alone.

Have great dog treats while you're training. The dog should be more interested in you than the chickens and the way to do that is with delicious treats.

Many dogs can never be left alone with the chickens, while some dogs are fine with it eventually.

This worked for me - everyone probably has a different technique.

 

[woodmort]

Many dogs can never be left alone with the chickens, while some dogs are fine with it eventually.

Case in point: My neighbor had a dog who was fine around his birds--completely ignored them. He went to a neighboring farm with the dog, let the dog out of the car and it headed straight for the chickens and killed several before they could stop it. You never know.

 

[LizzzyJo]

Case in point: My neighbor had a dog who was fine around his birds--completely ignored them. He went to a neighboring farm with the dog, let the dog out of the car and it headed straight for the chickens and killed several before they could stop it. You never know.

I've also heard that a dog visitor can spark the kill instinct in a dog that has been calm with chickens for years. Some kind of pack mentality trigger. I always lock mine up when dog visitors come. my friends are like 'let's just see how he does with them' and I'm like 'hard pass'. let's not experiment with my chicken's lives to see how your dog likes them.

 

[McGregor]

Thank you all. I will definitely be working with my dog as often as possible. She has gone through phases of not caring to not taking her eyes off their coop while in the garden.

 

[MasAhora]

I have a dog that we rescued off the street with her sister as puppies. They did kill one of my chickens. After a long period of conditioning I now can leave my aggressive dog with my (her) chickens. I can't trust her with new animals but she's great with 40 chickens and chicks swarming around at feed time and accompanies me with pride!
For months I had her on a lead and tied her off near the chickens at feed time. Eventually I could drop the lead pretending she was restrained and later just forget it altogether.
I walk her to a different area briefly on the lead first - so she loves it, gets to have a sniff and pee, then calms down a bit, then I get along with her as part of my routine.
She's on the same training regime (?) now with other animals and it's working.
Basically my dog was made part of the daily routine, sometimes we went out when I had a cup of coffee in hand or late in the summer day with a glass of wine in hand so it felt relaxed and enjoyable for me too! We're surprised it worked, but it did and it's one of my daily joys to sing "Chicken Time" and my dog knows.... she's my escort not a hunter