Teach dog to stay away from chickens

[Paknbaset]

my chickens roam my yard. they are SUPER friendly and come right up to anyone or anything that goes in the yard. they will even 'bow' down submissively to let you pet them (i have pet them since they were chicks). ie they dont run away from you when you come in the yard

I just got a new australian shepard. I know these dogs will not intentionally hurt chickens and might herd them.

my dog has plucked all the feathers out of one chicken and scalped another. she was not trying to hurt them and was just playing. when the chickens bowed down she just played with their neck. with the one that she plucked the feathers, the chicken had no feathers left on her neck or upper back but there was no blood at all.

I do not have a separate covered coop area. and we all know chickens can fly and jump high fences

I dont want to hurt anymore chickens. I am looking for options

I know I can use the remote training collar on the dog when I am out there. but it is getting very difficult to be out there all the time and she wants to stay outside and play and I cant let her

I was hoping there was a proximity training thing that I could put the transmitter on the chicken and the reciver on the dog. just so she does not go within a foot of the chicken (to get her trained) but I could not find one.

I have also thought of rehoming my chickens and getting new ones that run away or just not have chickens at all. but i would rather not do these if possible.

does anyone have any other ideas

 

[AinaWGSD]

You have a few options. I have my girls in a secured run that my dogs cannot get into. As an additional security measure it is sort of double gated in that you have to go through the fenced garden (that the dogs don't have access to) to get to the run door.

If you don't want to keep your chickens in a secure run, you can build a dog run. It could be a little less expensive than building a chicken run because you don't have to take nearly as many measures to keep predators out. You don't have to use the smaller gauge wire because you don't have to worry about raccoons trying to break in to get to the dogs. And if the chickens are curious enough to stick their heads through the fence, chicken wire will be adequate to stop that. You may still need to cover the run to keep the chickens from flying in, but there are multiple inexpensive options for that.

Another option is to only let your dog outside with supervision and work on training her to ignore the chickens. Yeah, it can be a pain, but sometimes our pets are inconvenient. You cannot make assumptions about how she will interact with your chickens based on your dog's breed. A lot of Australian shepherds absolutely  will intentionally hurt chickens. Especially if they run or make noise, it can trigger their prey instincts.

"Good" dogs are not born good, they are trained to be good. Its our job as owners to teach them what is or is not acceptable behavior. If you can't train them not to do things you don't want them to do, then you prevent them from engaging in those behaviors by managing the environment.

 

[McChooky]

My dogs were already a couple yrs old when I got chickens so I spent a lot of time training them . Obedience training is the first step in training your dog to protect your chickens. https://backyardpoultry.iamcountryside.com/feed-health/training-dogs-around-poultry/

 

[talkinboutchickens]

I have the same struggle My mastiff puppy is awful with my chickens, he pulls so hard to get to them and he pounces and is so rough with them...I've been trying to train him by tugging hard on the leash when he goes after them, that's how I basically trained my german shorthaired pointer. She is perfectly fine around them now, but you should have seen her when she was a puppy!! Now when I'm taking her a walk, she completely ignores them, doesn't even look at them!! But it took her 4 years to get to that point. She is fine with adult chickens but she still goes crazy when she sees chicks. There are way more quicker and more effective ways such as shock collars, invisible fences etc. but I know that they aren't options for everyone

 

[AinaWGSD]

There are way more quicker and more effective ways such as shock collars, invisible fences etc. but I know that they aren't options for everyone

That's another option. We have an invisible fence (and you're right, it isn't an option for everyone, they work but they're expensive) because my older dog kept getting out of the fenced yard and running in the highway. We also use it inside the house to keep the pets out of the kitchen and have used it to protect the christmas tree from cats and wrestling dogs. I haven't bothered using it to deter the dogs and cats from my birds because my run is secure enough that they're only an annoyance, not an actual danger.

You could set up an area of the yard where the dog doesn't have access but the birds do using something like an invisible fence or even electric poultry netting.

 

[ChicNmom]

One of my friends had geese and chickens. The geese trained her puppies early. Those dogs won't go withing 5 feet of her birds. LOL

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Your dog "playing" with the chickens and plucking them will eventually lead to her eating one, and there's pretty much no going back from that. The first thing you need to do is physically separate the dog from the chickens while you train the dog proper behavior around the chickens. If you can't do that, rehome the chickens until you can.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Having said that, there are many ways to do that. Here's what worked for me. I'm old and somewhat infirm, and daily training sessions with the dog were not in the cards for me. I used a very passive approach and it worked. My dog was a 15-month old undisciplined rescued Sheltie, neutered male. The chickens spent their day in a large fenced run. The dog spent most of his day in the house. Every day I took him out and put him in a 20 x 20 (approx) chain-link grow-out pen adjacent to the chicken run and left him out there two or three hours. At first he was fascinated by the chickens and would bark at them and run up and down the fence beside them. The chickens paid him no mind as we already had another Sheltie they knew and trusted. Over the course of a month or so, Sammy lost interest in the chickens as they ignored him and he could not get to them.

Then I went out and put him on a 15-foot long cotton web line. I took him into the chicken run to see what he would do in closer proximity to the chickens. He did - nothing. The chickens had ceased to interest him. I ran among the chickens to make them run and flutter. Still no interest. He was chicken-proof. Below is Sammy with the chickens now. He and the chickens roam about the property together freely and I trust him completely, even if I am not home. Good luck.

 

[Paknbaset]

a few people have mentioned underground fences (electric). I have no issues with doing this and keeping my dogs away from part of the yard. I just worry about the chickens going into the 'dog' area

I had heard (outside of this tread) that chickens also avoid them.

if I put one up, will the chickens avoid them without the collar.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

a few people have mentioned underground fences (electric). I have no issues with doing this and keeping my dogs away from part of the yard. I just worry about the chickens going into the 'dog' area

I had heard (outside of this tread) that chickens also avoid them.

if I put one up, will the chickens avoid them without the collar.

No. Nothing will avoid the underground electric fence but the dog wearing the collar. Other dogs, all predators, and your chickens, will all behave as if the underground fence does not exist.