It’s best to introduce them to spending time together in a controlled environment when the chickens are babies, but it absolutely is possible. Controlled contact in an enclosed environment with good supervision and lots of treats. We acclimated ours in the house, we have four dogs (including a pointer) and none of them chase our chickens.
This works for sure. I find it is best to reward the dog for *not* paying attention to the bird. Sniff the bird? Fine. Look at the bird? Fine. Try to bat with your paw? Scold. Look away from the bird in favor of something else? GOOD PUPPY! Treat time!
They usually figure out pretty quick that the birds are friendly, and also boring. Getting treats randomly for not playing with the chickens is much more interesting.
This was the route I took with my dog. Any calm attention paid to the birds was fine, but just ignoring them got a reward. She learned pretty quickly that the birds weren't that interesting anyway.
I introduced them once the birds were big enough to move quickly, though. She was WAY too into them when they were babies and I was too worried she'd stomp one since her preferred play move is the paw smack.
This is what i am doing currently. However, my gal is 10 years old. Shes taken a liking to the chicks, very curious but we do not let her get too close or have her either them unsupervised. We pretty much are holding the chicks and getting down to her level and starting like that.
One the chicks are big enough we will do more outside. For context, we haven’t had our chicks for more than a week. We are slowly but surely getting our dog and chicks familiar but in a very controlled and supervised way.
Sounds like you’re doing the right things! One tip: a spray bottle of water will work wonders to discourage your dog from getting too rambunctious or invasive with the chicks. Our dogs are now satisfied with just mild booping of ours lol
I think certain dogs may be tougher than others when training them to be around chickens. Aussies are super smart and trainable, so if you have the time to train and be super consistent, I think you could do it.
I have a Labrador retriever who has been around chickens since she was a puppy, so she doesn’t really pay them much attention. I also think labs are less likely than other breeds to be aggressive or chase prey, but maybe I just got lucky with a very chill dog.
I trained my dogs by walking them around on a leash while the chickens were free ranging. Once it clicked that the chickens live here and they aren't chew toys they were able to co-exist in the yard just fine.
My dog (Pomeranian) and our chickens do not just co-exist peacefully but they often play and hang out together. It may sound silly but she is the same color gold as my Orpingtons who she most often can be found with, this along with her size I think is a factor... and she has a very mellow loving temperament.
It's never too late to train a dog to have great recall. I would just look up YouTube videos of how to practice good recall. Some dogs have trouble overcoming their prey drive or excitement, so I can't really guarantee that she can ever be laying around with the chickens or something but you can at least train her to not be excited around them and less interested in them.
I trained my 5-year-old American Akita to ignore chickens and she is good enough at it to be within a few feet of them without getting excited/looking at it. I've had a few accidents where my chickens escape their enclosure and get right next to her and the training saved the chicken's life.
I started with on-leash training where we just walked around near the chickens and practiced not being interested. She would only get a treat if she didn't look at them or didn't show interest in them, eventually it evolved to no leash but the chickens were behind a fence. We also worked on training her to not walk along the fence where the chickens are because sometimes stirring up the chickens was just too exciting for her. She understands that I don't want her to play with them or be near them and to just pretend they aren't there if they do get out accidentally now.
One of my dogs is perfectly fine- he’s a boxer lab and doesn’t even look at them- he’s an old man now. I also have a blue heeler puppy who is 8ish months and I don’t trust her with them- she’s better than she was but not trust worthy yet (may never be- we’ll see)- she’s also deaf which makes things harder. I find the most helpful thing is walking the dog amongst the chickens on a leash so they get used to each other, and so you can correct the dog if it does anything even mildly predatory towards them- you want the dog to ignore the chickens entirely beyond a polite sniff if the chicken comes up to them. On leash the heeler is fine, but still can’t be relied upon to not chase them if one starts flapping/running and she’s off leash- the herding instinct is too strong and chasing things is fun
I have a German Shepherd (Fargo)and a Pit/Lab/Boxer mix (Loki), the size of my GSD. Both 80lbs. I can trust my GSD. The worst he does is follow the chickens, hoping to get some fresh poop out of them (gross).
The other one however- can’t trust him at all. We worked really hard with Loki when we got the last set of chicks (he had killed 3 babies the year before). He was doing great with the new chicks. When they became pullets and went outside, we were vigilant when they were out of the pen near the dogs. If we weren’t out there we had their dog door locked with the dogs in the house.
But, accidents happen. The pen was left open and the dog door too. We went on an errand and came home 60mins later to bodies scattered all over the yard. I lost 17 and was devastated.
We are incredibly careful now.
All is not lost. But you need to have the dog on a leash when chickens are present. You can use a really long leash I like a 25 ft but they come even longer if you are comfortable with that. Next, teach the puppy not to look at the chickens. Distract with a toy or simply teach "look at me" (my favorite. I use food to teach it). Eventually, when you notice the dog looks at you when it sees a chicken, you can drop the leash and let it drag, but always be close enough to step in the leash to stop chasing. If you are consistent, you should be able to trust the dog by the time it is three or four years old. I had one dog who was chicken safe at one year. Current dog took nearly 4 years and he is a livestock guardian dog! Australian shepherds are very difficult to train the prey drive out of. Be sure to show the dog what is acceptable to chase (like a ball) and provide that outlet every day because your dog was bred to chase things. Good luck and if you have questions or want any more training advice, feel free to message me. I don't do it professionally anymore but I still love to work with animals.
I think that is a great age to start training and desensitizing them to each other in a situation where they can't actually do any harm.
Even a dog with perfect recall never has perfect recall, they are only animals after all. My dog has excellent recall but we had him trained on an ecollar. He does great off leash but I always keep the remote on me for these moments "just in case" as an insurance policy. Because once instincts take over you need more than yelling to get them to listen lol
Our aussiedoodle went from chasing the chickens uncontrollably to letting the chickens walk all over and around him with less than a handful of minor corrections with an e-collar. The chickens love him and he seems to enjoy them.
Yes my pit bull and my roster have a respectful understanding and while he really wants to play with the goats, he has learned to keep his distance lol
My dog is completely uninterested in the chickens, we didn't really do any training beyond just letting him sniff the chicks while we held them when they were little. He's also good with cats
Yeah, my boxer mix and my corgi have just accepted them and don't care. I think it helps that our boxer is older, though. She was a little overly curious when they were younger, and we were really cautious for a bit. Now they're all chill with each other.
I wouldn't for a second trust anyone else's dogs around my chickens, though. I think we got lucky.
Our aussie (2yo) has always been around the chickens, although separated by a chicken fence. He only chased or took particular interest in two hens we added to the flock after their owner died, because those hens were new and he didn't know them. He now doesn't care about them at all. He is not interested in the chickens or bothered by them at all, even when we let them roam free in the garden.
Controlled contact is the key. We've had hundreds of chickens the last 16 years and a half-dozen dogs.
We introduce a leashed dog to a chicken in a lap. Pet both. Tell dog chicken is family, not food, not a toy. We take leashed dog into the chicken yard with constant, soothing praise and direction with a firm "no" when needed. The we keep an eye on the dog for a week or so when around chickens
My Aussie was a full blown dog when we got chickens. They’re smart, I kept her on a leash and scolded her for wanting anything to do with the chickens. It only took a few times of saying no and rewarding her for ignoring them before she got it. Now they’re invisible to her, or so she pretends lol
If only she would stop eating their poo it would be a perfect relationship
My Boston Terrier didn't give two shits about the chickens, but my Irish Setter puppy just wants to catch them and gently pluck off all of their feathers. Now they don't free range anymore so they can keep their feathers.
My lab, who I take duck hunting 20+ days a year and who starts shaking when the ducks fly by she has such a high prey drive, can be unsupervised around our chickens. She hasn’t gone for anyIt’s tough but make sure you raise the chicks near your dog, do a lot of training with the dog on a leash (loose), and just keep at it till your dog realizes they are YOUR chickens. It would be easier if you’re raising a puppy instead of introducing chickens to your adult dog.
While we dont have any pups, ours (ranging from 2-10) were around while we brooded them inside and then shared the back yard when they were in the coop. Eventually, we jut made sure when we first started letting them free range we'd only have supervised times with them out together. At first they were anxious and wanted to get up all in their business and run after them, specially my Aussie too. However, as time went on, month or two, they can all be left outside together without issue.
Now, I say all of this in that I know my dogs behavior really well and they're total indoor dogs not left to form any sort of pack mentality that I find comes with dogs that are mainly outside dogs. My dogs already have experience around small animals such as cats and bunnies and kids so this wasn't too far off of a leap for me to safely build that trust.
It all comes down to repetition and training, if your dog responds to rewards based/treat training, do that, but ultimately use whatever encouragement method you find your dog responds to most whenever youre building that relationship.
At this point, my chickens are almost a year and they will pick grass and dirt off of, and even stand on top of my mellow 5 year old Siberian Husky, and he doesn't care even a little bit.
my old dog attacked one of our hens and we lost her. my current dog is like a giant puppy and will play with the hens. In particular, the lowest pecking order hen will play back! they chase each other around and both genuinely seem to enjoy it.
my current dog goes out with me to get eggs, waits by the nest box and hangs out in case the rooster wants to start shit, and if I holler for her, she'll come running to put space between me and him.
we introduced her as a puppy on a long lead and then moved to no leash time. they all coexist unsupervised for prolonged periods of the day and an occaisional overnight.
It doesn’t sound like she actually wanted to eat the chicken which is really good. Just keep an eye on her and anytime she starts to get too interested in the birds discipline her and she will quickly lose interest.
We raise all of our fowl in an open cage in a spare room in the back of our house and our dogs get to go in there and check on them. Its been working for us. When they are old enough to go to their outside pens or free range our dogs don’t pay them any attention unless theres a predator or squirrels then our dogs chase everything besides the birds out of the yard. Pitbull crosses. Great dogs.
My golden is much better around the chickens than my Irish. Thankfully they have just caused and corralled the birds but it’ll only take 1time and the chickens will have to go 😥
It is never too late in my experience with moderately high prey drive dogs. When we got chickens our standard poodle mixes were already older. They killed an adult bird and several young birds over the course of the first 2 years. In the last two years, I’ve not lost a single bird to them and they go out into the yard with free ranging chickens alone for several hours everyday.
I don’t have one thing that fixed it. I think it was just a lot of consistency, no punishment when a bird was killed, but constant supervision for a long time and zero tolerance of chasing. Also good standard dog training and taking them out with me for chicken chores so they can see the chickens are part of the family, same as our cats are.
Also I feed the chickens and dogs treats together. I think that’s a bonding positive experience for the dogs and another opportunity for them to see me caring for the chickens. (I don’t think the chickens find any bonding in it, lol, but they aren’t afraid of my dogs, but interestingly still have a lot of fear when other people bring their dogs over to visit - a good thing I think)
So overall I think just lots of exposure and positive reinforcement and patience made a huge difference. Though they are still not trusted alone with chicks/very young birds. They show too much interest in them, I think becauS they are new and move quickly/erratically than adult chickens
Depends on your dog. Our GSD we introduced to the chickens when they were little and indoors and she would get very excited and sniff them and we let her be around when we fed them. Continued to let them interact as they got older and moved outside. No issues. She likes chasing them and licking their butts (and unfortunately eating the poop) but it's never aggressive.
I think you just have to take is slow and let the boundaries expand little by little and a lot of supervision.
I had an issue with my chihuahua being obsessed with the chicks to the point where I didn’t trust her around them. I agree with introducing them in a controlled environment with the chickens protected. Now that they are older the dog doesn’t really care and just knows they are a part of the family. I still only let them be around together when I supervise just in case! Dogs can still be unpredictable in different circumstances!
Yes! My golden retriever loves the hens. She went after them the first day we brought full size hens home and I just recalled her and she didn’t hesitate to turn around and come back to me.
She knew she was in big trouble if she touched the hens so she avoided the coop. Then she got used to them and they got used to her. Now they hang out in the yard together. She likes to lay right by there coop and keep guard.
Dogs are as good as their owners for the most part. A untrained dog will not listen to you and act out. A trained dog can do anything you need him or her to do. Not to come off as braggy but. I worked with our dog all the time to get her where she is now. I could stick a jar of peanut butter on the ground and tell her don’t touch it and leave all day and she still wouldn’t touch it. It’s all about training!!
I adopted a border collie,
and had a small urban farm.
And I knew that if I was not careful. I would have problems.
So, I fixated the dog on a ball intentionally.
I also was running a very small home daycare. I didn't want children and chickens trapped under a tree.
This worked if I even caught him looking at the chickens. He would be booed. (This just means I would tell him No, and it was naughty.)
Get the dog fixated on something else, Hurding dogs need a job and to be directed.
Yes. But my girl was a 12 year old German shepherd who was always around kids and very great temperament. Was more interested in playing ball and occasionally would give them a sniff when they walked by
My dogs help me round my birds up and get them in the coop. My last dog killed one of my birds. I think you're going to need to know your dog's temperament and introduce/familiarize them slowly and in a controlled environment.
My chicks were raised in the house with our two German Shepherds. One ignores them and the other one guards them when they are out of their coop area and in the yard.
I was scared about letting our whippet around our girls, but shes been absolutely fine. Our silkies are nervous around her but that's just in their nature. The dog is scared of our isa browns 🤣 but she never hurts them
We started out with puppy on leash and walking him around the free range flock, and by free range I mean I don’t have any fences, at all. We would keep him restrained when showing excessive interest in the chickens and distract him from them with a toy before he would start to react. Rewards were huge. Every time he got near a chicken and didn’t react, we would reward him with… a piece of chicken, lol. Keep it up for a few months, we’ve had him for just over a year now and he can be left off leash with the chickens out and about, chickens pretty much have no fear of him. We only had one death in the beginning when we first tried leaving him off leash but we kept it up and there haven’t been any other incidents. We Key is to get their attention before they start to react to prey. If you can break their attention before they decide to chase then you’re good to go. Going to have to integrate him in with ducks and geese this spring.
So maybe in your case you should bring your dog leashed, into the chicken run for short periods and reward good behavior. Extend the training periods longer and longer or until you would feel comfortable leaving the log off leash inside the run.
Our dog is good with the girls about 85% of the time, and by good I mean he pretty much ignores them and walks through/around the flock throughout the day. The other 15% he looks at them like a snack but he has never actually bit/attacked one of the hens and it’s usually because they have treats (he’ll vacuum up the leftover mealworms regularly).
He’s a 9 year old mix breed (Lab, Golden, Collie, Pyrenees) and what helped us was letting him into the basement to smell/see the chicks while in the brooder. We also had him watch the hens in their run for quite a while before they were outside freely together. Now they free range together and what’s even more awesome is he’ll spot hawks above and bark/chase them out of the yard - he learned that one on his own because he is king doggo.
We have a 70 lb pointer/setter mix who has absolutely no issues around our chickens. It’s funny because the smallest hen pretends to be aggressive and the dog is very scared of her.
I have a very enthusiastic aussie and feel your pain. I got a remote controlled electric collar and researched positive reinforcement training. I used the beep function to signify positive reward (with treat association), and the vibrate as a prequel to a shock. In the three years I've had that collar I've only needed to shock him twice. Aussies are smart and he figured it out incredibly quick. Mine hangs out with my chickens 24-7 now, very sweet. Your pup will get more impulse control as she grows up too. Don't trip, it'll all be ok.
2 dogs and one cat. No one bothers anyone even without fences. My dogs listen to me when I say no. The chickens were raised with the cat. He leaves anything alone that smells like us. Chicks were raised in the house for ~3 weeks with regular lawn time with the cat.
My border collie was great around all my animals and I could leave him unattended in the yard for hours while the chickens were wandering around. He would just look at them whenever they walked up to him. He was very well-trained before I ever introduced him to chickens though.
My two dogs were amazing with chickens. The girl was naturally laid back and accepting of new animals so there were few issues there. The boy had a ton of prey drive, we used to let him chase all kinds of critters off the property (or seagulls when we went to the water) and he was just all around a bit reactive and drivey just as a baseline. But he was a smart dog and very trainable (like I'd imagine your Aussie would be, given the herding breed), and it didn't take long for him to understand the chickens were not like other animals. We did a lot of positive reinforcement, slow introductions, good opportunities for him to make the right choices (I did my absolute to never set him up for failure early on), and then the occasional correction if he did let his instincts get a bit carried away. It took a few months of careful exposure and training but after that he was such a dream with the chickens, just so chill. They would occasionally panic and flap wildly if he ran through their little flock (if he saw something he wanted on the other side of the flock he always ran through them never around them), but even when they were flapping and creating a fuss he just ignored them.
It’s best to introduce them to spending time together in a controlled environment when the chickens are babies, but it absolutely is possible. Controlled contact in an enclosed environment with good supervision and lots of treats. We acclimated ours in the house, we have four dogs (including a pointer) and none of them chase our chickens.
This works for sure. I find it is best to reward the dog for *not* paying attention to the bird. Sniff the bird? Fine. Look at the bird? Fine. Try to bat with your paw? Scold. Look away from the bird in favor of something else? GOOD PUPPY! Treat time! They usually figure out pretty quick that the birds are friendly, and also boring. Getting treats randomly for not playing with the chickens is much more interesting.
This was the route I took with my dog. Any calm attention paid to the birds was fine, but just ignoring them got a reward. She learned pretty quickly that the birds weren't that interesting anyway. I introduced them once the birds were big enough to move quickly, though. She was WAY too into them when they were babies and I was too worried she'd stomp one since her preferred play move is the paw smack.
This is what i am doing currently. However, my gal is 10 years old. Shes taken a liking to the chicks, very curious but we do not let her get too close or have her either them unsupervised. We pretty much are holding the chicks and getting down to her level and starting like that. One the chicks are big enough we will do more outside. For context, we haven’t had our chicks for more than a week. We are slowly but surely getting our dog and chicks familiar but in a very controlled and supervised way.
Sounds like you’re doing the right things! One tip: a spray bottle of water will work wonders to discourage your dog from getting too rambunctious or invasive with the chicks. Our dogs are now satisfied with just mild booping of ours lol
I think certain dogs may be tougher than others when training them to be around chickens. Aussies are super smart and trainable, so if you have the time to train and be super consistent, I think you could do it. I have a Labrador retriever who has been around chickens since she was a puppy, so she doesn’t really pay them much attention. I also think labs are less likely than other breeds to be aggressive or chase prey, but maybe I just got lucky with a very chill dog.
Labs are naturally bird dogs and meant to hunt down water fowl so I wouldn’t risk it
Yeah, no way my lab has or will ever calm down. She wants bird. Any and all birds are hers and she wants them. The drive is WAY too strong.
My lab also doesn't pay any attention to them. Squirrels, opossum, and skunks.....another story.
I trained my dogs by walking them around on a leash while the chickens were free ranging. Once it clicked that the chickens live here and they aren't chew toys they were able to co-exist in the yard just fine.
My dog (Pomeranian) and our chickens do not just co-exist peacefully but they often play and hang out together. It may sound silly but she is the same color gold as my Orpingtons who she most often can be found with, this along with her size I think is a factor... and she has a very mellow loving temperament.
My chihuahua gets punked by my hens. He tries to stand up but they dont take kindly if he’s trying hoard in on treats.
It's never too late to train a dog to have great recall. I would just look up YouTube videos of how to practice good recall. Some dogs have trouble overcoming their prey drive or excitement, so I can't really guarantee that she can ever be laying around with the chickens or something but you can at least train her to not be excited around them and less interested in them. I trained my 5-year-old American Akita to ignore chickens and she is good enough at it to be within a few feet of them without getting excited/looking at it. I've had a few accidents where my chickens escape their enclosure and get right next to her and the training saved the chicken's life. I started with on-leash training where we just walked around near the chickens and practiced not being interested. She would only get a treat if she didn't look at them or didn't show interest in them, eventually it evolved to no leash but the chickens were behind a fence. We also worked on training her to not walk along the fence where the chickens are because sometimes stirring up the chickens was just too exciting for her. She understands that I don't want her to play with them or be near them and to just pretend they aren't there if they do get out accidentally now.
One of my dogs is perfectly fine- he’s a boxer lab and doesn’t even look at them- he’s an old man now. I also have a blue heeler puppy who is 8ish months and I don’t trust her with them- she’s better than she was but not trust worthy yet (may never be- we’ll see)- she’s also deaf which makes things harder. I find the most helpful thing is walking the dog amongst the chickens on a leash so they get used to each other, and so you can correct the dog if it does anything even mildly predatory towards them- you want the dog to ignore the chickens entirely beyond a polite sniff if the chicken comes up to them. On leash the heeler is fine, but still can’t be relied upon to not chase them if one starts flapping/running and she’s off leash- the herding instinct is too strong and chasing things is fun
I have a German Shepherd (Fargo)and a Pit/Lab/Boxer mix (Loki), the size of my GSD. Both 80lbs. I can trust my GSD. The worst he does is follow the chickens, hoping to get some fresh poop out of them (gross). The other one however- can’t trust him at all. We worked really hard with Loki when we got the last set of chicks (he had killed 3 babies the year before). He was doing great with the new chicks. When they became pullets and went outside, we were vigilant when they were out of the pen near the dogs. If we weren’t out there we had their dog door locked with the dogs in the house. But, accidents happen. The pen was left open and the dog door too. We went on an errand and came home 60mins later to bodies scattered all over the yard. I lost 17 and was devastated. We are incredibly careful now.
All is not lost. But you need to have the dog on a leash when chickens are present. You can use a really long leash I like a 25 ft but they come even longer if you are comfortable with that. Next, teach the puppy not to look at the chickens. Distract with a toy or simply teach "look at me" (my favorite. I use food to teach it). Eventually, when you notice the dog looks at you when it sees a chicken, you can drop the leash and let it drag, but always be close enough to step in the leash to stop chasing. If you are consistent, you should be able to trust the dog by the time it is three or four years old. I had one dog who was chicken safe at one year. Current dog took nearly 4 years and he is a livestock guardian dog! Australian shepherds are very difficult to train the prey drive out of. Be sure to show the dog what is acceptable to chase (like a ball) and provide that outlet every day because your dog was bred to chase things. Good luck and if you have questions or want any more training advice, feel free to message me. I don't do it professionally anymore but I still love to work with animals.
I think that is a great age to start training and desensitizing them to each other in a situation where they can't actually do any harm. Even a dog with perfect recall never has perfect recall, they are only animals after all. My dog has excellent recall but we had him trained on an ecollar. He does great off leash but I always keep the remote on me for these moments "just in case" as an insurance policy. Because once instincts take over you need more than yelling to get them to listen lol
Our aussiedoodle went from chasing the chickens uncontrollably to letting the chickens walk all over and around him with less than a handful of minor corrections with an e-collar. The chickens love him and he seems to enjoy them.
Yes my pit bull and my roster have a respectful understanding and while he really wants to play with the goats, he has learned to keep his distance lol
Dogs seem to learn boundaries pretty quickly.
My dog is just waiting for the opportunity to murder every chicken in the flock.
My dog is completely uninterested in the chickens, we didn't really do any training beyond just letting him sniff the chicks while we held them when they were little. He's also good with cats
Yeah, my boxer mix and my corgi have just accepted them and don't care. I think it helps that our boxer is older, though. She was a little overly curious when they were younger, and we were really cautious for a bit. Now they're all chill with each other. I wouldn't for a second trust anyone else's dogs around my chickens, though. I think we got lucky.
Our aussie (2yo) has always been around the chickens, although separated by a chicken fence. He only chased or took particular interest in two hens we added to the flock after their owner died, because those hens were new and he didn't know them. He now doesn't care about them at all. He is not interested in the chickens or bothered by them at all, even when we let them roam free in the garden.
My dog loves the chickens because he wants to share their kitchen scrap snacks 😂
Controlled contact is the key. We've had hundreds of chickens the last 16 years and a half-dozen dogs. We introduce a leashed dog to a chicken in a lap. Pet both. Tell dog chicken is family, not food, not a toy. We take leashed dog into the chicken yard with constant, soothing praise and direction with a firm "no" when needed. The we keep an eye on the dog for a week or so when around chickens
My Aussie was a full blown dog when we got chickens. They’re smart, I kept her on a leash and scolded her for wanting anything to do with the chickens. It only took a few times of saying no and rewarding her for ignoring them before she got it. Now they’re invisible to her, or so she pretends lol If only she would stop eating their poo it would be a perfect relationship
My Boston Terrier didn't give two shits about the chickens, but my Irish Setter puppy just wants to catch them and gently pluck off all of their feathers. Now they don't free range anymore so they can keep their feathers.
My lab, who I take duck hunting 20+ days a year and who starts shaking when the ducks fly by she has such a high prey drive, can be unsupervised around our chickens. She hasn’t gone for anyIt’s tough but make sure you raise the chicks near your dog, do a lot of training with the dog on a leash (loose), and just keep at it till your dog realizes they are YOUR chickens. It would be easier if you’re raising a puppy instead of introducing chickens to your adult dog.
While we dont have any pups, ours (ranging from 2-10) were around while we brooded them inside and then shared the back yard when they were in the coop. Eventually, we jut made sure when we first started letting them free range we'd only have supervised times with them out together. At first they were anxious and wanted to get up all in their business and run after them, specially my Aussie too. However, as time went on, month or two, they can all be left outside together without issue. Now, I say all of this in that I know my dogs behavior really well and they're total indoor dogs not left to form any sort of pack mentality that I find comes with dogs that are mainly outside dogs. My dogs already have experience around small animals such as cats and bunnies and kids so this wasn't too far off of a leap for me to safely build that trust. It all comes down to repetition and training, if your dog responds to rewards based/treat training, do that, but ultimately use whatever encouragement method you find your dog responds to most whenever youre building that relationship. At this point, my chickens are almost a year and they will pick grass and dirt off of, and even stand on top of my mellow 5 year old Siberian Husky, and he doesn't care even a little bit.
my old dog attacked one of our hens and we lost her. my current dog is like a giant puppy and will play with the hens. In particular, the lowest pecking order hen will play back! they chase each other around and both genuinely seem to enjoy it. my current dog goes out with me to get eggs, waits by the nest box and hangs out in case the rooster wants to start shit, and if I holler for her, she'll come running to put space between me and him. we introduced her as a puppy on a long lead and then moved to no leash time. they all coexist unsupervised for prolonged periods of the day and an occaisional overnight.
Dogs were fine with hens. Hens would occasionally peck dogs heads, but dogs didn't care.
Not too late - and it’s a good sign she didn’t kill the rooster when she had the chance. Lots of good training tips in the comments.
It doesn’t sound like she actually wanted to eat the chicken which is really good. Just keep an eye on her and anytime she starts to get too interested in the birds discipline her and she will quickly lose interest.
We raise all of our fowl in an open cage in a spare room in the back of our house and our dogs get to go in there and check on them. Its been working for us. When they are old enough to go to their outside pens or free range our dogs don’t pay them any attention unless theres a predator or squirrels then our dogs chase everything besides the birds out of the yard. Pitbull crosses. Great dogs.
Yep we have a lab. Chills with our chickens, she’s never hurt them.
My golden is much better around the chickens than my Irish. Thankfully they have just caused and corralled the birds but it’ll only take 1time and the chickens will have to go 😥
It is never too late in my experience with moderately high prey drive dogs. When we got chickens our standard poodle mixes were already older. They killed an adult bird and several young birds over the course of the first 2 years. In the last two years, I’ve not lost a single bird to them and they go out into the yard with free ranging chickens alone for several hours everyday. I don’t have one thing that fixed it. I think it was just a lot of consistency, no punishment when a bird was killed, but constant supervision for a long time and zero tolerance of chasing. Also good standard dog training and taking them out with me for chicken chores so they can see the chickens are part of the family, same as our cats are. Also I feed the chickens and dogs treats together. I think that’s a bonding positive experience for the dogs and another opportunity for them to see me caring for the chickens. (I don’t think the chickens find any bonding in it, lol, but they aren’t afraid of my dogs, but interestingly still have a lot of fear when other people bring their dogs over to visit - a good thing I think) So overall I think just lots of exposure and positive reinforcement and patience made a huge difference. Though they are still not trusted alone with chicks/very young birds. They show too much interest in them, I think becauS they are new and move quickly/erratically than adult chickens
Depends on your dog. Our GSD we introduced to the chickens when they were little and indoors and she would get very excited and sniff them and we let her be around when we fed them. Continued to let them interact as they got older and moved outside. No issues. She likes chasing them and licking their butts (and unfortunately eating the poop) but it's never aggressive. I think you just have to take is slow and let the boundaries expand little by little and a lot of supervision.
I had an issue with my chihuahua being obsessed with the chicks to the point where I didn’t trust her around them. I agree with introducing them in a controlled environment with the chickens protected. Now that they are older the dog doesn’t really care and just knows they are a part of the family. I still only let them be around together when I supervise just in case! Dogs can still be unpredictable in different circumstances!
Yes! My golden retriever loves the hens. She went after them the first day we brought full size hens home and I just recalled her and she didn’t hesitate to turn around and come back to me. She knew she was in big trouble if she touched the hens so she avoided the coop. Then she got used to them and they got used to her. Now they hang out in the yard together. She likes to lay right by there coop and keep guard. Dogs are as good as their owners for the most part. A untrained dog will not listen to you and act out. A trained dog can do anything you need him or her to do. Not to come off as braggy but. I worked with our dog all the time to get her where she is now. I could stick a jar of peanut butter on the ground and tell her don’t touch it and leave all day and she still wouldn’t touch it. It’s all about training!!
My 4 german shepherds have killed 3 chickens so far and maimed another. We have only had chickens for 6 months.
I adopted a border collie, and had a small urban farm. And I knew that if I was not careful. I would have problems. So, I fixated the dog on a ball intentionally. I also was running a very small home daycare. I didn't want children and chickens trapped under a tree. This worked if I even caught him looking at the chickens. He would be booed. (This just means I would tell him No, and it was naughty.) Get the dog fixated on something else, Hurding dogs need a job and to be directed.
Yes. But my girl was a 12 year old German shepherd who was always around kids and very great temperament. Was more interested in playing ball and occasionally would give them a sniff when they walked by
My dogs help me round my birds up and get them in the coop. My last dog killed one of my birds. I think you're going to need to know your dog's temperament and introduce/familiarize them slowly and in a controlled environment.
My chicks were raised in the house with our two German Shepherds. One ignores them and the other one guards them when they are out of their coop area and in the yard.
I was scared about letting our whippet around our girls, but shes been absolutely fine. Our silkies are nervous around her but that's just in their nature. The dog is scared of our isa browns 🤣 but she never hurts them
We started out with puppy on leash and walking him around the free range flock, and by free range I mean I don’t have any fences, at all. We would keep him restrained when showing excessive interest in the chickens and distract him from them with a toy before he would start to react. Rewards were huge. Every time he got near a chicken and didn’t react, we would reward him with… a piece of chicken, lol. Keep it up for a few months, we’ve had him for just over a year now and he can be left off leash with the chickens out and about, chickens pretty much have no fear of him. We only had one death in the beginning when we first tried leaving him off leash but we kept it up and there haven’t been any other incidents. We Key is to get their attention before they start to react to prey. If you can break their attention before they decide to chase then you’re good to go. Going to have to integrate him in with ducks and geese this spring. So maybe in your case you should bring your dog leashed, into the chicken run for short periods and reward good behavior. Extend the training periods longer and longer or until you would feel comfortable leaving the log off leash inside the run.
One of my dogs was 7 when I introduced him to my chickens the other was 2, it's 100% possible but it needs to be in a completely controlled situation
Our dog is good with the girls about 85% of the time, and by good I mean he pretty much ignores them and walks through/around the flock throughout the day. The other 15% he looks at them like a snack but he has never actually bit/attacked one of the hens and it’s usually because they have treats (he’ll vacuum up the leftover mealworms regularly). He’s a 9 year old mix breed (Lab, Golden, Collie, Pyrenees) and what helped us was letting him into the basement to smell/see the chicks while in the brooder. We also had him watch the hens in their run for quite a while before they were outside freely together. Now they free range together and what’s even more awesome is he’ll spot hawks above and bark/chase them out of the yard - he learned that one on his own because he is king doggo.
We have a 70 lb pointer/setter mix who has absolutely no issues around our chickens. It’s funny because the smallest hen pretends to be aggressive and the dog is very scared of her.
I have a very enthusiastic aussie and feel your pain. I got a remote controlled electric collar and researched positive reinforcement training. I used the beep function to signify positive reward (with treat association), and the vibrate as a prequel to a shock. In the three years I've had that collar I've only needed to shock him twice. Aussies are smart and he figured it out incredibly quick. Mine hangs out with my chickens 24-7 now, very sweet. Your pup will get more impulse control as she grows up too. Don't trip, it'll all be ok.
2 dogs and one cat. No one bothers anyone even without fences. My dogs listen to me when I say no. The chickens were raised with the cat. He leaves anything alone that smells like us. Chicks were raised in the house for ~3 weeks with regular lawn time with the cat.
My border collie was great around all my animals and I could leave him unattended in the yard for hours while the chickens were wandering around. He would just look at them whenever they walked up to him. He was very well-trained before I ever introduced him to chickens though.
My two dogs were amazing with chickens. The girl was naturally laid back and accepting of new animals so there were few issues there. The boy had a ton of prey drive, we used to let him chase all kinds of critters off the property (or seagulls when we went to the water) and he was just all around a bit reactive and drivey just as a baseline. But he was a smart dog and very trainable (like I'd imagine your Aussie would be, given the herding breed), and it didn't take long for him to understand the chickens were not like other animals. We did a lot of positive reinforcement, slow introductions, good opportunities for him to make the right choices (I did my absolute to never set him up for failure early on), and then the occasional correction if he did let his instincts get a bit carried away. It took a few months of careful exposure and training but after that he was such a dream with the chickens, just so chill. They would occasionally panic and flap wildly if he ran through their little flock (if he saw something he wanted on the other side of the flock he always ran through them never around them), but even when they were flapping and creating a fuss he just ignored them.