Will a dog protect chickens?

[Nym]

This is not farm dog related but is about a dog on a long lead. One day (35years ago) my daughter comes home saying zeek was hanging out the window (zeek was a shepherd), I just thought she meant looking out the window. A couple minutes later she comes back and says zeek is not moving anymore so I run over and find zeek jumped through the screen and was hang by his lead. I did get him un-hooked and he slowly gasped for air and saved him. Zeek was the neighbor 2 houses down dog who they tied in the house so he couldn't get to certain areas.

My sister's red cattle dog was a notorious fence jumper. To curb his enthusiam they tied him to a tyre rim when going out. He soon built the muscle to haul the tyre And jump the fence. The neighbour's, luckliy at home, saved him from hanging himself.

A goat on a property I agisted my horses on was tied to a huge truck rim. He still pulled it all around the place, needing to be rescued at least weekly from some entanglement or another..

 

[Nym]

So sorry for your loss.

If you do get a dog, teach it to use your whole property. Always use a lead and reward heavily for what you want. I walked my pup Edi around the whole yard the first day home so she would know it was all hers. Often the scent of a dog will make predators think twice, so the further they leave their droppings etc from the hens the better..

I also trained her to chase cats from the yard. I could see the cats beside the tractor at nite but it still took her a while to figure it out. In the end Betty frizzle helped by making the alarm sound, to which I would drop everything and run! lol. It still took a few goes for her to finally see what I was pointing at as the big ginger slinked over the fence once again. He was old and slow but on the day the penny dropped that cat fled and never returned. She has never caught one, nor would I let her - she is trained to a drop command. Working with dogs is so rewarding. Edi is GSD x staffy, 4yrs old now and is all business when it comes to the chickens.


All the best with your next flock.