sadly yes. Do you have roosters? Are your dog's chicken trained? Do you have a fence around your property? Are you in town or in the country?
I am in the country. The chickens have the coop and then a solar chicken door that opens into an outside pen area
which is covered overhead and it's a pretty large area. The door to that is open which gives them access to a larger yard area with my gardens, yard, etc, and dog door. Basically it's where the dogs can go out at night through their door. This area is also fenced in for the most part
Except: If I want to allow the dogs to patrol at night I will leave the door open and they can do as they please. If I want to let the chickens free range the entire acerage of the property I would also open this area for them to go out of.
I actually have 4 roosters right now but I am only keeping 2. I only have so many roosters right now because I was waiting for them to develop before I chose which one I wanted for breeding. Which, I was supposed to decide last weekend.
Dogs: good around chickens but I don't think they would be good around them if I wasn't around, does that make sense? However I do notice one of the dogs (younger one) being protective of her chickens when my sister's doxen comes over and gets too hyped around them. My dog will put her mouth around his face softly or take her head and push him away from the fence. If he is especially tenacious she might push her nose under his belly and push him away while making noises. In general though, the dogs could really care less about the chickens when we are around, because the dogs are very people-action focused. There is a rooster at my dad's house that will go after the dogs to impress his girlfriends and they never act aggressive back. They just let him flap around while they continue to eat grass lol. However, I think the dogs, like humans, could potentially get bored if left alone with the chickens all day- and that might lead to an issue. The same dog, the younger one, will also patrol at night sometimes. We didn't realize this until we kept finding dead raccoons in our yard while at the same time, she was hunting them out as we would return for walks at dusk. There
was a family of 6 coons with a
massive momma racoon frequenting our mulberry tree area. I discovered this the day after a dead baby was under the same tree. The dog picked off the babies one by one until finally, the last 2 (mom+1 baby) must have relocated. I'm glad she never had a run in with the mom because she was the size of a medium dog. Both dogs will hunt racoons in the woods on walks but the little one seems especially interested. The older dog, 12 years old, is a killer but now getting too old to super care. Actually I take that back, she killed that skunk this past sunday at my dad's house!! I should say to their credit that this year my entire batch of chicks escaped the pen by popping off the lid. This happened twice and I'm blaming my fiance. Anyways, the dogs were home with them all day and basically just let the chicks wander the house. The chicks didn't even seem afraid of the dogs at all, didn't seemed to be traumatized by getting chased all day. I guess in short, I just don't know if I can depend on them to protect the flock unless it is only one at a time and with a muzzle on. They might also just be too lazy. I think for now I will research how to train dogs to protect the flock. The younger one I think is a better candidate, and so I will focus on her for now. I've done dog training programs before so hopefully I can come up with some techniques after online research to start. I'll also be looking into reflective tapes and other ways to keep these hawk jerks away. I only have 3 hens now that are BCM. Only 2 i'm willing to breed.
pyxis hahah I was thinking the same thing after I read about hawks online, I came by the same information! good to know lol woops!
do i have to worry about this hawk dick coming back? i guess i'll be researching this more. I like to let my guys free range but the unpredictable terror might be too much for me to handle emotionally. cute dog wedding gramma- and what a creative fundraiser. I watched the link about black friday fee waived adoptions and perhaps more places should try that out to make room in shelters.
I do want to let you know it's a good thing that you didn't shoot it because that's illegal, even if it is killing your chickens.
