The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[Quailsong]

Aoxa- your pic with the tons of chickens made me giggle. I always think getting swarmed by 8 hens is a lot.......I don't know how you guys walk with that many surrounding you

Shuffling is better than stepping on toes. It works with chickens, puppies & all sorts of other swarming critters. XD

 

[PetRock]

I got GPs specifically to guard the chickens. It is VERY difficult to bond a dog to birds. And mine have liked to play with chickens and killed two chicks when playing so when I'm not supervising, they are penned or chained up while the chickens get free range. Chicks are also not allowed out now until they stop peeping. But they, even now, at a very young age, notice and bark at large birds overhead. I have no doubt that they would drive off an overhead predator too...if the hawks we had at the beginning of summer come back. They moved on not long after the puppies showed up.

We have friends with guardian dogs on a 10 acre farm. They have chickens, ducks, and turkeys free ranging the whole property. They have told us that there is a learning curve and they do lose a few birds to the dogs when the dogs are young.

We had chickens first with no dog but my daughter wore us down and we adopted a rescue dog who was around 7 months old. She is some kind of cattle dog/catahoula mix who is a header. She has high energy and loves to play. I was hoping that we would eventually be able to trust her in the backyard with our yard ranging chickens. We worked quite a bit on the leave it command and I took her out with me almost every time I fed the chickens or gave them treats. The chickens got fed first and then Pixie got a treat. I was hoping to communicate to her that the chickens were higher in the pack than she was. She played with a 18 week old cockerel and he died. There were no wounds on him so I don't know if he broke his neck or something. We kept working with her. Two months later when she was past a year, we felt that she was doing really well with no casualties so we trusted her when we shouldn't have. We left her with the chickens while we were gone a while. Our broody hen chose to come off her nest and we found her dead in the yard when we came home. There were no wounds but we are assuming the dog played with her. Two more months went by and she played with another teenage cockerel and he died. We were there that day but couldn't get to them in time. 3 lessons learned the hard way. It seems like she was most interested in the teenager cockerels and the broodies. I think that it was because they didn't act like the rest of the chickens who avoided her. They stood up to her and she saw it as an invitation to play. She has never acted aggressive with them just excited. It now 1 1/2 years later and she hasn't played with a chicken since. We still don't leave her with them while we are away from home. She might be fine with them but I am not willing to trust her completely, yet.

 

[SunnySkies]

We have friends with guardian dogs on a 10 acre farm.  They have chickens, ducks, and turkeys free ranging the whole property.  They have told us that there is a learning curve and they do lose a few birds to the dogs when the dogs are young.  

There is. Every LGD owner I know and have met during this process told me that. I expected it. And my dogs have met the expectation. It is partially my fault...I left them alone one afternoon to run into town, thinking they would stay sleeping under the bushes. Well, they didn't. Sigh.

The difference with LGDs versus other breeds of dogs is they love their charges. They will literally love them to death. And that is what apparently happened to two hens (the chicks were different...my girl saw them as squeak toys and broke into the little pen to get them). My girl (it is always her) caught a hen and licked the skin and muscle off her abdomen. Twice. I saved the hen, but it should never have happened. My fault for letting them be loose when I wasn't home. I'm told they will sometimes get between mother sheep and lambs in a frenzy of loving and then prevent the mother from taking the lambs. When the lambs die of exposure or hunger, this poses a problem, and the LGD eats the dead lamb. But people assume the dog killed the lamb, when in reality, it was doing what was necessary to help prevent predators from coming around. This type of behavior goes away with age and experience. They still love their animals, but they stop trying to play with them, stop trying to be physically loving and work to guard their stock.

But once you get over the hump, which is about two years, LGDs are completely trustworthy, and many LGD people define an LGD as a dog that will stay with the flock out of preference.

Mine live outside near the animals 24/7. Their kennel and chains are even near the coops so they are always near the birds. They only come inside the house if someone leaves the door open...and they come inside to scavenge food off the floor and then leave, lol. They roam our property at night and when I am home and able to supervise, are penned if we are not home, and predator pressure has dropped to zero. Mine recognize their birds. I bought and quarantined some adult hens this summer, and when I let them loose, finally, the dogs followed them around and even barked at them, knowing they were different than the rest of the birds.

I have a friend with two LGDs -- she is the reason I have two -- and her Anatolian caught and killed a hawk when it swooped down too low in an attempt to catch a chicken. This dog is good at his job. I hope mine are as good when they grow up.

 

[Leahs Mom]

Sunny - what if you had gotten your dogs when they were over 2 yo. Do you think they would have trainable to the chickens at that age rather than going through the puppy stage?

 

[aoxa]

Henry is so awesome as a guard. I really, really lucked out. He has tried to play with silkie juveniles. Picks them up in his mouth and brings them to us, all happy and excited and proud of himself. Chicks are covered in drool and traumatized but have not lost one. He hasn't done that in months. I trust him with the chickens now. He does chase the goats. I kind of encouraged him to do so, because they were always on the freaking deck.. I wanted them off, and he would chase them down to the barn.. well he chased them down to the barn and one burst out the window on Saturday. Was not impressed. He got scolded for that.

He is very protective of the property, much less so of the house - and if we are there he greets people happily. At night if he sees people he doesn't know, he is terrifying with the barking.

He has a good sense of what should not be on the property. Hence the porcupine defending itself. Whoops... He's also caught a mouse. He's only 9 months...

In the early 1900s, fanciers exhibited the few examples of the large dogs at shows in Berne, and in 1907 a few breeders from the Burgdorf region founded the first breed club, the Schweizerische Dürrbach-Klub, and wrote the first Standard which defined the dogs as a separate breed. By 1910, there were already 107 registered members of the breed. There is a photo of a working Bernese Mountain Dog, dated 1905 at the Fumee Fall rest area in Quinnesec, MI.

They were initially bred as farm guardians. Now so many are bred without care to their original purpose. Thankfully Henry's line is imported from Sweeden where he is from working lines.

What I like about him as a guardian, he does not wander. Not at all.. Best part about him.

I know others love their Great Pyrs and Maremmas - but I found them very independent, and extremely difficult to bond with poultry. They work wonderfully with sheep, goats, cattle, etc. But for chickens alone? I would not do it again. And not without ample acreage.

What is a Pyr off leash? Gone. That is a saying I have heard many times over

They do come back, but only when they WANT to come back. So if you have a property that is not adequately fenced along a road that could be a danger - you will need to take that into account.
They are worse than goats with escaping. Yep.

You need:
Ample land
Strong/durable fencing - electric would work well at the top and bottom. They can clear fences 4 feet. I've seen it.
Large Livestock for them to bond to.
Patience.. A lot of it..

If you have an older Pyr or Maremma they teach that pup how to behave. I assume the second dog would be MUCH easier to train. YES YOU HAVE TO TRAIN!

They need to know:
Drop it
Down or Off
and Recall..

At least those three commands.
We had to have a trainer come in and help us with Clementine. We were way out of our league. Clem was a really good dog, but boy when she took off - it was scary.. We live on a busy road.. :S

Once he is older and can be fully trusted at all times, he will be out with them all day long when we are at work. As soon as we can figure out how to keep him in the fence. After Koda, I would never leave any dog unattended in our yard again... Koda never went on the road.. but he was chasing off a skunk.. doing his duties

Henry would too if something came on our property and he wasn't contained properly.

 

[armorfirelady]

I can't believe how much Henry has grown !!!!! And I see the kittens are growing as well

 

[aoxa]

I can't believe how much Henry has grown !!!!! And I see the kittens are growing as well

He is 100 pounds now at 9 months. What a hefty guy he is.

He needs to be fixed like yesterday.. The puppies are being potty trained so there are accidents.. if he smells pee, he pees us a river. It's disgusting and it he is a bad boy :|

But then he smiles, all the time. Every second he is smiling. I love him, despite him being an annoyance when I need to make supper. His sheer size is crazy!


How did he go from this

to this:


in 7 months?

 

[Leahs Mom]

Wait till you have kids!

 

[PetRock]

Henry is so awesome as a guard. I really, really lucked out. He has tried to play with silkie juveniles. Picks them up in his mouth and brings them to us, all happy and excited and proud of himself. Chicks are covered in drool and traumatized but have not lost one. He hasn't done that in months. I trust him with the chickens now. He does chase the goats. I kind of encouraged him to do so, because they were always on the freaking deck.. I wanted them off, and he would chase them down to the barn.. well he chased them down to the barn and one burst out the window on Saturday. Was not impressed. He got scolded for that.

He is very protective of the property, much less so of the house - and if we are there he greets people happily. At night if he sees people he doesn't know, he is terrifying with the barking.

He has a good sense of what should not be on the property. Hence the porcupine defending itself. Whoops... He's also caught a mouse. He's only 9 months...

They were initially bred as farm guardians. Now so many are bred without care to their original purpose. Thankfully Henry's line is imported from Sweeden where he is from working lines.

What I like about him as a guardian, he does not wander. Not at all.. Best part about him.

I know others love their Great Pyrs and Maremmas - but I found them very independent, and extremely difficult to bond with poultry. They work wonderfully with sheep, goats, cattle, etc. But for chickens alone? I would not do it again. And not without ample acreage.

What is a Pyr off leash? Gone. That is a saying I have heard many times over

They do come back, but only when they WANT to come back. So if you have a property that is not adequately fenced along a road that could be a danger - you will need to take that into account.
They are worse than goats with escaping. Yep.

You need:
Ample land
Strong/durable fencing - electric would work well at the top and bottom. They can clear fences 4 feet. I've seen it.
Large Livestock for them to bond to.
Patience.. A lot of it..

If you have an older Pyr or Maremma they teach that pup how to behave. I assume the second dog would be MUCH easier to train. YES YOU HAVE TO TRAIN!

They need to know:
Drop it
Down or Off
and Recall..

At least those three commands.
We had to have a trainer come in and help us with Clementine. We were way out of our league. Clem was a really good dog, but boy when she took off - it was scary.. We live on a busy road.. :S

Once he is older and can be fully trusted at all times, he will be out with them all day long when we are at work. As soon as we can figure out how to keep him in the fence. After Koda, I would never leave any dog unattended in our yard again... Koda never went on the road.. but he was chasing off a skunk.. doing his duties

Henry would too if something came on our property and he wasn't contained properly.

He is gorgeous! I need land first and then I will have a reason & space for a LGD!

 

[aoxa]

Wait till you have kids!

The pee, or the growing? Both probably lol