my dog attacked my chickens

[RedRox]

this morning my dog was able to scale up my 4' poultry wire fence and get into the chicken run. where he stole a chicken and made his escape over the fence in the back and into the laneway behind our house. i found feathers but no chicken. im not sure if he ate it or it got away. im loking for advice on how to get the dog to see the chickens as something other than food or a play thing. completely closing up the chicken run is impracticle due to the trees and whatnot in that space and im not sure how todo it. i only have steel posts holding up my poultry wire. confining the dog is impracticle because we use him for security and to help keeep other predators away. i typed this post on my phone on my lunch break sorry if its hard to read

 

[Sootsie]

short of moving the chiken pen to where you can enclose it the only other thing is raise the height of the fence and add some more posts to strengthen it

 

[Mahonri]

When I was a kid, we tied the dead chicken around the dog's neck. He got tired of it and quit going after the chickens. We were lucky.

I've also heard of those who beat the dog with the body of the dead chicken. I don't believe in doing that.

I'm lucky, my Golden Retriever lets the chickens walk right on top of her when she's asleep. My friend had to get rid of his chickens because he says his 'hunting' dog could never be trained not to go after a bird.

In my view, it's either build a run that is impenetrible to the dog, or get rid of the dog or the chickens.

 

[herefordlovinglady]

i used a shock collar to control my dog. best thing i ever did. i used the petsafe "training collar" --

 

[lovemelovemybirds]

all of the above. Our dog that killed and ate a chicken is no longer with us.

 

[carrlr]

That's going to be a tough one. A shock collar or invisibile fence might work, but once a dog gets a taste for chicken or has been able to "play" with them it's hard to break. Might come down to the dog or the chickens. Sorry for your loss.

 

[sosanista]

I'm not looking forward to this issue myself. I've raised birds and the past and my dogs left them alone but since then they killed a neighbors chicken and I've just started another bird project at a new house. I went with Dark Cornish though so hopefully they'll scare the dogs and they'll leave em alone.

 

[bobbi-j]

They can be trained, but it takes lots of time and commitment. Either that, or you need to beef up your run somehow. You'll most likely get lots of advice from many people on how to train your dog. You know your dog, and you need to do what works for you. We have a lab. A hunting dog. He's a great pheasant hunter, but leaves the chickens alone.

 

[FlipFlopFarmer]

the dead chicken around the neck, the shock collar, the electric fence around the chicken pen, all work, but u have to think from the dogs point of view and make going near the chickens and chicken pen very very undesirable. you also have to do this without you in sight, because he will associate you with the reprimand and do it while you are away. Commitment is the key. Me personally, i am lazy and my dogs run amuck in thier area. the easiest thing for me to do is run a strand of electric fence wire at dog height ( for me, thats wiener dog height), and one or two zaps and its done. However, i already have electric fence to keep my horses and cows from leaning on my regular fence, so the cost was minimal. AND.... lord knows i loved hearing lil puppy screams right after i spent the hot afternoon running the wire, now those little devils just look at my goose and scheme a new scheme.

 

[cafarmgirl]

Put up electric poultry netting or just run a hot wire around the perimeter of your chicken pen, about 6 or 8 inches from the ground. Run another one along the top. One good zap on the nose and most dogs have had enough. My dog will not come anywhere near the spot where he got zapped by the hotwire around the chicken run. Very effective with the bonus of deterring other predators as well.

IMO it's very hard to train a dog once they've had the experience of catching and killing chickens. Maybe with a huge outlay of time and training, even then I'd never trust a dog that had killed before.