Utah!

[hen-thusiast]

Quote:
First of all, that isn't a dumb question. That was one of our biggest fears because our dogs are our family. We have a lab and a mutt that loves to kill everything. The shock collar worked great, that and time.

We never thought we'd be able to let the dogs and chickens together. Now the dogs love the chickens and like to follow them around to eat chicken poop, which is only slightly more disgusting than the horse poop that I can never get them to stop eating. Since we do have a hawk/eagle problem here, we actually now feel more comfortable with the dogs around the chickens than the other way around.

 

[Stands With A Fiddle]

Good to know... my friend had a couple of dog-related incidents with her puppy. Chickens were a non-issue with her mature dogs, so I wonder how much it's a puppy-chew thing with that little dog. In addition to chicken carnage, there have also been many destroyed shoes and personal belongings due to chewing. She bought a shock collar last week, so I'm hoping you're right about that.

On another topic... My friend (who got me started with chickens) has been giving eggs to another friend who works at the AG's office. To make a very long story short, he happens to know someone at the state who has been testing commercial eggs for additives, etc. Apparently commercial hens get quite a bit of arsenic in their feed because it makes them fatten up and lay more. So, he gave a couple of our eggs to this same person to test them and compare them to commercial eggs. Our home grown eggs have no arsenic. They are also quite a bit more nutritious. I have yet to see the report that details the thousands of dollars in testing that was done on our eggs, but I'll let you know when we get it.

Thought you might like to know!

 

[hen-thusiast]

Quote:
I'd love to see a copy of that report! Arsenic? Who would have thought that?

Our dogs also went through rattlesnake aversion training in which the handler used a shock collar. My dog went from being the only dog who wanted to eat the snake (why we put her in the class) to being the dog to alert from the the furthest distance when she smelled the snake. Years later, when we're on the trail, they will signal snakes and come run behind us. Worth. Every. Penny.

 

[ZombieChicken]

Quote:
You must be in the unincorporated county also? Our dog got our chickies once so for now they will not be allowed to even see eachother. We are going to try electric fence to train our dog once the chicks go to the coop and run. Post a link to the one you ordered if you don't mind, I have never heard of it.

 

[carybear]

yeah we're unincorporated too. I was so glad to learn that we can now have chickens. I had a friend who had hers with out the ordinances and almost got in trouble....

Here's the link. I'm all about having something kind of cute. and I think this is

http://www.omlet.us/products_services/products_services.php?cat=Eglu+Cube&subcat=Introduction
I'm getting the red one.

 

[ElkMtnCove]

Our lab (90 lbs and from a rescued Border Collie mom that we fostered) loves our chickens (as in really loves..and not to eat). In fact, last year we had a guinea hen fly into our pond. Jason (the lab) swims in the ponds nearly year round, dive in, caught the hen and brought her up to us (at the house which is not very close). Both of them were soaking wet... he usually has a dry back after swimming.

The guinea did not have one bite mark and he handed her over to us like "pls take care of my baby". We took it in the house and used a blow dryer to dry it.

We have also had a fox jump in the corral mid afternoon, where we let the chickens 'free range' while my daughter was standing with them!! The fox actually chased a rooster who ran behind my daughter for safety!

So now we we let them free range with our lab the dedicated "chicken sitter"! We sometimes find him with an egg gently put between his front legs. He will lick it and take care of it -- never even cracking it (and he does love eggs to eat!).

So much for our "bird dog" (thank heavens!)!

 

[Stands With A Fiddle]

I have a very cute cat who takes care of my chickens. He is a gorgeous orange Tom Cat that I named Tangerine. His story was that he was abandoned, and attempted to adopt an acquaintance's household. The problem is, she did not want him and her renters did not want him. So I ended up with this cat that I wasn't sure that I wanted. I thought for the longest time I'd have to find him yet another home because he didn't get along with my other two cats. In hindsight, I think he was just traumatized by his situation. Fortunately, he turned out to be a very loving and sweet cat. He is also almost human in his intelligence. He can open doors to both by pushing on them (easy enough) and by pulling (not so easy). The screen door on my front room is on a spring, so he actually has to put quite a bit of thought and force into pulling it open from the outside to come back inside when he wants. I usually keep the wooden door open and just the screen door shut when it's nice out. When I do that, it's quite funny to watch him walk in and out of my house by using the door like a person.

Anyway, he seemed to be very protective of my chickens for a while now. I have a few neighborhood cats that occasionally come and harass the chickens. Tangerine always runs them off the property, even if it means getting the occasional "meowy owie" (cat fight wound). This spring I got some babies, and he also realized that they were the same thing as the big chickens. A couple of weeks ago we put the babies out into the big girl coop, and he started sticking close to them to make sure the neighborhood cats did not molest them. The first two days they were out, one chick got separated from the young flock (a.k.a. the Peep Squad) every day. It was a different chick each time. Both times he led me directly to the stranded chick that I needed to rescue.

Then last week, my SLW started laying. The first day that she laid, she freaked out a little bit and in her panic she jumped the fence. Tangerine followed her and was watching over her to make sure she was OK. As soon as my dad pulled up to my house, Tangerine went up to him, meowed, and walked back over to the SLW. When she was safely back over the fance, Tangerine went about his business.

Tangerine also waits until the ladies are safely in the coop and the coop is locked up for the night before he comes to sleep with me.

He is a very interesting cat, and I'm glad that apparently he found his calling in life with tending the chickens.

 

[ElkMtnCove]

Awwww, Tangerine sounds so amazing! We had an orange cat that lived nearly 25 yrs! So cute he's taken on the role of chicken mom. Animals never cease to amaze me. Fm a mouse to a horse - they all have such personalities!

julie

 

[Stands With A Fiddle]

I have no idea how old Tangerine is. Someone spent a lot of money declawing him at one point (poor baby!). I'd like to find out an approximate age at some point, if that is possible....

 

[carybear]

Can't your vet help you approximate how old Tangerine is?

Tangerine sounds like a fun cat.