How to introduce my dog to chickens?

[PeakARoo]

Hello poultry people.

I will be doing about six month's work on a friend's farm soon and I would like to take my beloved dog to work every day.
She is an eight year old Rhodesian Ridgeback cross Australian Kelpie.

I took her to the farm the other day to see how she went whilst heavily supervised. As soon as she saw the chickens she started to stalk a bit
but did not move from my side. I gave her a firm commandment of "no".

In an hour or so, the one who was doing the most stalking was the Bantum rooster. 

My dog has never killed anything it has cornered but I am well aware that chickens are easily traumatised by such events.

Is there any gradual introduction system that anybody has successfully used with a dog? She is fairly docile but likes to scare small birds out of "her" backyard.

Thanks.

[HungryRaven]

I have had a few chicken killer huskies.  Two now won't touch a chicken anymore unless they find it dead then they eat it.  But how I cured them from killing was keeping them on a short chain and feeding, watering and entertaining the chickens right in the dogs space.  The dogs got worried about the chicken inundation and decided not to bother them anymore.  So now they run free and walk slowly among the chickens.  My third husky is more stubborn.  Now they frequently wander through her space and she ignores them and she won't kill them if I am in sight or yell at her but sometimes she decides to stalk one and if I am not around she will still nail one.  If your dog is stalking if alone she may try a rush and bite.  She might have enough self control to avoid chickens if you just yell at her a few times.  If that doesn't work the fact that she isn't already rushing them means if you do the chain and chicken inundate method it might cure her fast.  My stubborn dog started out totally unable to control herself and you could stand over her with a stick wacking her and she would still grab and kill a bird and thats after having free run of the chicken yard and growing up with them.  Now after chicken inundation training I can sometimes let her loose to run with chickens around and if I am there to yell at her she will avoid the chickens.  But I still would'nt trust her like the other dogs.       

[Aussie]

One of my dogs is a collie X Aust kelpie. She rounds up chickens or anything else that she can. It's totaly part of her breed. I'm wondering if your dog was actually stalking as in to hunt, or if he was having a go at rounding up the chickens as any red-blooded kelpie will do.

I guess the best you can do is to watch him closely and let him get used to the chickens. I'm not too sure that the chickens will be particularly traumatised by your dog even if he chases them. I have 30 chickens which are rounded up into the hen house every afternoon by the dogs. Sometimes one of the dogs will have a bit of a game and chase them round the yard a while. Doesn't seem to overly bother the chooks. They still lay like crazy.

[Chickengirl]

One of my dogs is a collie X Aust kelpie. She rounds up chickens or anything else that she can. It's totaly part of her breed. I'm wondering if your dog was actually stalking as in to hunt, or if he was having a go at rounding up the chickens as any red-blooded kelpie will do.

we had a collie X kelpie - she killed quite a few chooks and half our ducks - some dogs are just not suited to dealing with poultry, regardless of breed 

If your dog is very well trained and obedient, then I would gradually increase the time she spends with the chooks, but still keep her well supervised. Once she is familiar with the chooks, it should be less of a problem. But I would still keep her supervised - it's harder to experiment on how your dog goes with someone else's chooks 

Our old girl is a cattledog X ??, and she has never chased the chooks. She'll eat anything she finds dead, but she doesn't kill them. She gets shitty if they are trying to steal her food while she is eating it, but she has never attacked/harassed them. She chases bush turkeys, but they are too fast for her these days lol. We introduce any animals we bring home to her as soon as we get them out of the car - she has never had a problem this way (except for the pet rat and the guinea pigs  ), she accepts that we have made them part of the pack.

[Xenopus]

It sounds as if your dog is obedient enough so that our system would work. We have a German shepherd who was very interested in killing chickens and had done so in the past. We decided she had to learn that we would be VERY displeased if she killed any of ours. So we shoved them in her face from the day they hatched, with firm reprimands if she snarled or snapped. The photo shows hub taking chicks out of the incubator and letting her get very close. This worked. She got so frustrated that she ended up avoiding the chickens as much as possible. When I would go out to feed them, she would make a wide loop around us and head for the woods.

A new problems has now come up. We acquired a puppy that has no interest in killing birds, but loves to chase them. Because this is fairly harmless, we have tended to let her. Unhappily, the GS, who is a well-behaved old lady, is learning this as well as several other bad habits from the puppy!!!

[Dasha]

Our dog is a 5 year old field-bred golden retriever and is very 'birdy'. We got our pullets soon after she caught, killed and was in the process of eating one of our friends' chickens. Our dog eats raw food, mostly chicken, so no great surprise there.

She was trained using a pinch collar when she was a puppy. When we got our hens, we put on her pinch collar and a leash and took her into the chicken yard. Any time she made a move towards those birds we snapped the collar and gave her a sharp NO. We only had to do it that one day. She cohabits with the chickens happily (two years now) and she doesn't bother them at all when they run around the backyard. They have even tried to peck at her food while she's crunching through a chicken neck- kind of strange when you think about it - but she won't touch those birds.

[PeakARoo]

One of my dogs is a collie X Aust kelpie. She rounds up chickens or anything else that she can. It's totaly part of her breed. I'm wondering if your dog was actually stalking as in to hunt, or if he was having a go at rounding up the chickens as any red-blooded kelpie will do.

I guess the best you can do is to watch him closely and let him get used to the chickens. I'm not too sure that the chickens will be particularly traumatised by your dog even if he chases them. I have 30 chickens which are rounded up into the hen house every afternoon by the dogs. Sometimes one of the dogs will have a bit of a game and chase them round the yard a while. Doesn't seem to overly bother the chooks. They still lay like crazy.

Thanks for the great information people. Aussie, I think you are right about her wanting to round up the chickens. She rounds up (places in a pile) her toys at home.

I just wanted to mention that there are already a couple of miniature collie dogs on the farm but they will stick to the farm house and not venture near the machinery shed were I will be working. The chicken's domain is the shed area.


Thanks again.

[PeakARoo]

If none of these introduction methods work, I could always try plentyoffish or larvalife.

8yo F seeks respectfull relationship with chicken (colour, race not important)
Must have a GSOH (cackle at my jokes)
Please, nothing kinky (no chicken feathers)

Jess, lick lick.

I will leave out anything about laying....   

[Chickengirl]

 

mate, that's sad...

[PeakARoo]

mate, that's sad...

Glad to be of service. 

[fredd58]

Even if you break your dog completely, sometimes they STILL just can't seem to restrain themselves. My son has an adult female lab that completely ignores my chickens, walks through them like she is bored to death with them. Has never offered to chase, harrass, or bite at them. Til the neighbor turned up the other day after finally catching her in the act of killing HIS chickens. She'd already nailed 14 total over the last couple of weeks.

[Six Gun Jim]

If none of these introduction methods work, I could always try plentyoffish or larvalife.

8yo F seeks respectfull relationship with chicken (colour, race not important)
Must have a GSOH (cackle at my jokes)
Please, nothing kinky (no chicken feathers)

Jess, lick lick.

I will leave out anything about laying....   

   Nice.

[PeakARoo]

Even if you break your dog completely, sometimes they STILL just can't seem to restrain themselves. My son has an adult female lab that completely ignores my chickens, walks through them like she is bored to death with them. Has never offered to chase, harrass, or bite at them. Til the neighbor turned up the other day after finally catching her in the act of killing HIS chickens. She'd already nailed 14 total over the last couple of weeks.

Mighty interesting how dogs do that.

It is like us having a secret binge eating problem or dirty habit.

I think the dog believes that if it can do something and you are not present, everything is fine. Although some dogs will try and dissapear up their own
backsides when you come home and a backyard crime has been committed.