Worried about unwanted pests

[eneville]

Hi All,

We left out three 8wk old chickens in their coop last week. One afternoon something spooked them (we think it was a neighbours cat from somewhere along the road). The chickens were scared and when we went to check on them, like we do every half hour they all had open sores on their noses where the beak meets flesh.

Our garden backs onto the national rail line so there is a chance of foxes and other unwanted pests getting into the garden. I'm already bottling urine and have an electronic pest repellent on it's way from amazon.

My thoughts are that a cockerel would defend a flock as best it can, but that's not fair on the cockerel to put it in that situation and may upset neighbours.

Could I get a dog that loves chickens but could chase a fox off if we keep it outside in a kennel, does such a breed exist?

Thanks very much in advance

 

[scratch'n'peck]

Welcome to the forum! Although I have read about a lot of dogs attacking chickens on this forum, a lot of people report that certain dogs raised with chickens do very well with them. I don't have dogs, but I was at a B&B in the UK that had chickens with a rooster and the owners said the only times they lost some chickens to foxes was when the dogs were not out with them. They were labs and behaved well around the chickens. That said, putting up electric wire around the chicken run is probably the best deterrent of all.

 

[nzpouter]

have you had any past experience with owning/ training a dog?

 

[eneville]

have you had any past experience with owning/ training a dog?

I used to look after a dog when I was a youngster, but I've not trained a dog myself. I hadn't given the training aspect much thought to be honest. At this stage I'm just looking for options. Desired beast should love and defend the chickens, basically it needs to do what I can't always be around to do.

 

[nzpouter]

there's a lot of work involved in training a dog to what you want it to be... we just lost our 3 older ones, these can live with the chooks in their coop if need be. Their replacements are a year old and a wee pup, we had them for a few months now... wouldn't dream of letting them stay with the chooks unsupervised for at least another year....

See the amount of work you'll be getting into?

 

[natascha]

Hello, we live in a area that is enclosed by miles of forest, so we were worried about predators as well. We have four dogs, and we just one day decided to get chickens. We created a 625 square feet fenced of run for them with their coop inside. we got the chickens as they were just a few days old, and kept them in their brooder in the house, so that the dogs could look at them and get use to them. Then later at about 8 weeks , we started taking the chickens out on supervised day trips, so that they dogs could get use to them in the chicken run.
At this point the chickens live outside, and the dogs patrol the area around the chicken run, which is 25 x 25 feet, and no way will there ever be a raccoon, cat, weasel or anything else like that praying on my chickens.
My dogs are use to the chickens being in their run. Now, if the gate was to be left open, my dogs would eat the chicken.
There are dogs that get raised with chickens, and they do not harm them but live with them, as some dogs live with cats.
You might have luck looking for a farmdog on Craigslist, or advertise for one in your local paper. Dogs will surely defend your flock.