Puppy and hens?

[mooSa]

I had decided to get a puppy to be a future guard for my hens. I heard that I can raise the both together to get used to each other. Any tips or advice on this?

 

[okiron]

Supervise until maturity. Teach it to "leave it". Some suggest after crate training and potty training to put the crate inside the coop at night.

 

[AkTomboy]

Yes its a good thing to raise them together. Depending on the breed you are looking at will depend on how high of a prey drive it will have. Crate training is a good thing as well as the normal manners. Setting the rules down at a young age and not change what it can do a million times. Make sure you know about the breeds needs before you get whatever you choose. Do not get a border collie and be mad because it wants to herd and so on. Good luck and congrats on the new members of your family.

 

[KattyKillFish]

as AK Tomboy said, a lot of it depends on the breed. i would certainly suggest a border collie or aussie shepard. even if you select a breed that is good with animals, you MUST train them well! teach "leave it" and provide adequate punishment of they do not obey. a good slap on the nose should do it. not too hard, just enough to let them know they're not supposed to do that.

it is a really good thing to raise them together too! i like the crate in the coop idea! sounds like a great suggestion!

HUSKIES MAKE TERRIBLE,TERRIBLE FLOCK GUARDIANS!

don't get one of those, no matter what you do it will try to eat your birds.

 

[mooSa]

hehe great, ill look into what breed ill need and go from there. thanks

 

[chickenlove2009]

Quote:
not true!! lol mine is an adult and he is afraid of them. lol

 

[KattyKillFish]

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not true!! lol mine is an adult and he is afraid of them. lol

funny! my border collie was afraid of them at first too! she got over it though. if the chickens were getting too "adventurous" we would throw her outside and she would put them back in the coop. never hurting them or anything just sort of herd them. she could do in 5 minutes what would take 5 people in 15 minutes! man, that was YEARS ago! i must have been 7 or 8 years old!

 

[AkTomboy]

When I said "do not get a border collie and be mad it wants to herd" I was not talking about chickens. I was just talking about in general. Same with do not get a bloodhound and be mad it wants to fallow its nose. There will always be some who has a low drive for whatever breed it is.

While at my veterinary studies and while working at the clinic it ticks me off to no end how many people come in with breeds they know nothing about. They picked them because they were cute or saw them in an add. And then get mad because they want to track or herd and so on.

Its not fair to any animal to have owners who know nothing about what they are for or will want to do.

I have also seen this a million times when we have Pyr pups. People see the cute pictures of my lil fluffy butts and just "have to have" one.

It never seems to amaze me how many people will show up to check the pups out and have us check them out and then they are suprised as my 200 lb daddy comes walking up. The look on the peoples face of

"OMG he is HUGE" just makes me laugh. And then they get mad as we wont let them purchase a pup.

I also had an adopted Border who was scared to death of them and dont even think about the alpacas. We named her CatDog being that she was always a scaredy cat.

 

[Anny]

Supervision is key! Until they are all grown up and can all be trusted with each other. A playful puppy doesn't know any better and you'd hate for them to "play" a little to rough with one of the hens.

 

[Eggie and Me]

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What breed of dog? Some breeds would never be trustworthy. Supervision the key... Also regarding maturity, that too would depend on the breed.