My dog is a chicken eater, don't know what to do

[McChooky]

It’s been my experience shock collars don’t work. Dogs hair is too thick to bother them.
Or my dogs just didn’t care.
Cyclone fencing with chicken wire perimeter on the inside of the cage to keep dog from digging out. Much like you’d do for chicken coop with wire on the outside

 

[cmom]

I have a Aussie And he had the exact same problem with poultry. I bought a shock collar and it really helped him improve. And now he doesn’t even chase them anymore.

My brother did the same thing and his dog learned quite quickly that getting a shock was not good. He then used the vibrate and tone feature on it's collar and the dog finally learned to respect it and no more problems. At a year old the pup is trainable but it takes time and patience as well as praise and rewards for good behavior but none for bad behavior. It will learn. Good luck...

 

[RosemaryDuck]

I have an Aussiedoodle dog, just barely a year old, and we didn't socialize her very much with chickens when she was younger, and now we're worried it's too late. Her name is Rosie. She is a little over 40 pounds.

She tries to "play" with our cat, but he can take care of himself. She had one close call with my OEGB hen but I stopped her.

Late August she caught and killed one of my Australorps while we were gone. We tried to tie the hen to her neck, but she got it off and ate more of her. It was a mess.

I have had all my chickens confined in their coops since then, except sometimes in the evenings when I watch over them while they play in the chicken yard (which is fenced off from the rest of the yard, and we do our best to keep Rosie out of).

Today I had one rooster isolated from the others in a small pen. But in the matter of a few hours Rosie broke into the chicken yard and broke his pen open. This time she ate him pretty fast and all I found was feathers.

Both of these losses weren't chickens I loved, and they don't matter to my breeding programs, but that's not the point.

Rosie doesn't know that killing chickens is wrong. But if it came down to it, I would choose my chickens over her. But my whole family loves her (including myself) and we've had her since she was a puppy. And we bought her for over $1000 to breed her, and have spent a couple hundred on her since.

Please help, we don't know what to do. I've heard mixed results about shock colors.

Thanks in advace!

I'd like to give you a couple bits of advice here.

1: Tying a dead bird or animal to a dogs neck has never done anything to discourage them. It's an old wives tale/myth from old farmers and can actually make the issue worse as most dogs will just think it's a treat/tear it off and eat it. That and it's extremely unsanitary.

2: You can't assign human emotions to a dog. I know it's easy to do it because you love them (I love my dogs very much too!). Dogs don't have a sense of 'good' or 'bad'. She killed the chicken because it was something to kill and it was prey. There was no thought behind it.

I hope this helps. Best of luck to you and your pup!

 

[rosemarythyme]

Without knowing more about the set up I can only guess that the chicken fence isn't close to being predator proof and that whoever is supposed to be keeping an eye on the dog at any given moment, isn't, or is getting distracted.

We have 3 dogs and one is supposedly part husky. Like others we follow a simple rule - dogs out & chickens in, or chickens out & dogs in. Chickens only come out when dogs are inside the house. Dogs only come outside when chickens are fenced in. We're just 2 adults so there's no "I accidentally let the dogs/chickens out," which could be a problem if there's younger kids in the family or a lot of people coming by.

It’s been my experience shock collars don’t work. Dogs hair is too thick to bother them.

On a long hair dog you need to shave a patch to allow the electrodes to contact the skin.

 

[PioneerChicks]

@Overo Mare and @Kiki she is an outside dog and during the day she lives in our fenced backyard. The chicken yard is fenced off from the rest of the yard, and we do our best to keep her out, but it is large and hard to protect. We plan to make it small so we can fortify it better. She goes in a kennel at night.

@Lacy Duckwing We're considering buying an electric fence, if we downsize the perimeter.

@David61 Have you tried shock collars before? If so, on how many dogs? We've heard it might just confuse her, or it might work. Another concern is that she'll do fine when we're around, but when we're not around then she'll go after them.

 

[PioneerChicks]

Fencing! And if your dog can get into the chicken pen, so can anyone else.
Electric fencing is great, if it's legal where you live. And your dog might be trainable, but time spent will be necessary, with the dog on leash and expect it to take real effort on your part. And good fencing for your birds and your dog.
Mary

Do you have any training recommendations?

It is not too late to train the dog.

I do not know whether you will ever be able to trust the dog completely loose around chickens, but you can definitely make things better than they are now.

Just training the dog to obey you can help quite a lot. For example, if you tell her to sit and she sits, she cannot be chasing chickens while sitting!


I have seen almost exactly this story a few times before-- tieing the dead chicken to the dog does not teach the dog to leave chickens alone, but it does let the dog eat more of this chicken.



If you do your best to keep Rosie out of the chicken yard, does it work?
If not, I suggest that you improve the fence of the chicken yard.

Also, consider putting a leash on the dog and tieing the leash to a sturdy belt around your waist. (Or run the belt through the handle loop of the leash, before you put the belt on.)
That lets the dog spend time outdoors with you, prevents her from running and chasing chickens, and lets you grab either the dog or the leash at any time if she misbehaves.


I think you really need to improve the chicken yard and maybe the pen inside it as well. If your own dog can get in, so can a stray dog, or a coyote, or probably a fox or raccoon.



So start by keep her on a leash, or with a secure fence between her and the chickens, or inside the house, or any other arrangements that make it completely impossible for her to get to the chickens. That will keep her from doing it again while you work on training.

Also, make her practice obedience (heel, sit, come, and so forth) on a leash, in a place where she can see and smell chickens but not reach them (like outside the chicken yard, AND on a leash.) This makes her obey YOU, even when the exciting chickens are right there. It does not directly teach her that chicken-killing is wrong, but it does start to teach her that she CAN control herself even when sort-of near the chickens.

If she gets really good at obeying on leash, outside the fence, you could start to work her off-leash outside the fence, and on-leash inside the chicken yard.

I'm guessing you can train her to leave the chickens alone while you are present and paying attention, but it might take months or even a year or more of steady work to reach that point. Whether you can ever trust her unsupervised, I have no idea, but certainly not in the next few months.


I have also heard mixed results, and so I would probably try basic training methods first (leash and normal collar.)

I might consider an invisible fence (shock collar that activates when the dog goes near a certain boundary), and put that right along the chicken yard fence. The shock might be enough to keep her from destroying the physical fence, and the physical fence will keep her from running right through the area that shocks her (my former neighbor had a dog that ran right through his invisible fence all the time-- he had learned that once he went far enough, the shock stopped.)

Our chicken yard is not predator proof, but our coops (where I lock them in at night) are. I don't have many problems with wild animals during the day (foxes, raccoons, hawks, etc.) but they do take a few chickens a year, though none recently. However, the wild animals have a right (of sorts) and they don't do it often. But Rosie is well fed and wants to do it constantly, and that's my problem. Many people disagree with this but our farm works differently from most in some ways, and contrary to what you might think, I love my chickens a lot!

Thank you for the training tips, I will be upping my training with her a lot and training her near the chickens is a great idea!

We're actually thinking about doing that exact thing with the invisible fence! (I mean putting it along side the physical fence.) Thanks for the support!

I have a Aussie And he had the exact same problem with poultry. I bought a shock collar and it really helped him improve. And now he doesn’t even chase them anymore.

It’s been my experience shock collars don’t work. Dogs hair is too thick to bother them.
Or my dogs just didn’t care.
Cyclone fencing with chicken wire perimeter on the inside of the cage to keep dog from digging out. Much like you’d do for chicken coop with wire on the outside

Thank you guys for sharing input!

 

[FeatherTay]

Happened with my Yorkie. She was gone in less than a week. Had here since she was a puppy, but a bloodthirsty dog was not a good thing to have on my farm.

 

[FeatherTay]

I do have shock collars that work fine, but chickens will go up to dogs and the dog could still kill them.

 

[NatJ]

Many people disagree with this but our farm works differently from most in some ways, and contrary to what you might think, I love my chickens a lot!

I was assuming you didn't want any wild animals to take chickens either-- I see plenty of posts on here from unhappy people because a predator got into their "secure" pen (that was not as secure as they thought.) So I was hoping to spare you that kind of surprise. If you are satisfied with the current level of losses to predators (except Rosie), then your setup is probably fine for your needs (except as it relates to Rosie).

 

[Briosafarm]

Why on earth did you think tying a dead chicken to a dog's neck would do anything other than give the dog easy access to what she didn't finish eating first time around.? You mention "spent a couple hundred on her since" as maybe a reason for keeping the dog...good breeders spend thousands getting championships and health clearances and learning . You can't do the championship part because she's a mixed breed, like you could get at the shelter. None of this is Rosie's fault but please spend your time learning more about keeping chickens and dogs responsibly, and in the meantime please don't make more of either. Someone who can't figure out how to even keep them apart has no business doing either.