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Dogs and Chickens

2K views 9 replies 10 participants last post by  Pat Puwal 
#1 ·
Howdy folks,
I'm fairly new around here (I've been lurking for about a year and a half, have learned a ton, but haven't posted anthing) and I've got a question about keeping dogs and chickens in proximity to eachother.

Right now, we've got a fairly large yard (about 5000 sqft). We're in a corner lot, and so the yard is in a big U shape around the house. The Right side of the U has our small vegetable garden, and the wife wants to put a chicken coop back there, and fence it off with a pickett fence. Beyond the obvious precautions of needing to make sure that the dogs don't go over the fence after a chicken, I want to know what the other concerns about this arrangement are.

We've got two dogs, a 3 year old BLF, and a brand new pointing YLM pup. Will being around chickens affect their drive or desire? Am I going to ruin them over this?

Thanks.

Ray
 
#6 ·
You can but you have to be careful I have 2 duck dogs and one bird dog
and a pet duck names Fred. But Fred was around them while they where pups and he had a few close calls with them it's more training the duck then the dogs . A trained dog is not going to kill the bird but brang him to you alive Fred got used in traing teaching dogs to hold cripples he got where he was not afrade of the and would lay down and let the dogs pick him up. The funny thing is Fred would walk on a leash it was pretty common to see all the dogs and Fred going for walks with me in the nabor hood. But rule of thumb yes you can have chickens but you can't get mad if some of the get killed ha ha.


 
#8 ·
I keep pigeons, pheasants, and ducks for training.

The dogs always have to go poke around the coops to see if maybe, just maybe, one got out (it has happened before... something that they never forget! :) Nothing like letting a dog out to the yard and he returns with a live pheasant!)

They are very aggressive when hunting or training, but other than a quick check to see if any are escaped, they barely pay any attention to them. Some dogs, even if very driven, are intelligent enough to realize the difference between the penned birds, and hunting/training. Same thing at the park. If I'm walking them, they will bypass ducks very close with barely a glance, but game on if one buzzes the decoys! They can know the difference.
 
#9 ·
Forget the dogs. A picket fence? Chickens are like Big Macs to every creature with a taste for meat. Slow, plump, and tender, they are iirresistible. They need to be in an enclosure covered on top to keep out the avian predators. The enclosure can't have openings large enough for a weasel. The chickens could only be loose in the garden with someone around to keep an eye on them.
 
#10 ·
The chicken coop / dog thing puts me in mind of something that happened to us years ago before we had retrievers. We owned a big Brittany Spaniel that hunted ducks and pheasants. Spent a Sunday afternoon with a friend and took the dog because our Brit and his female GSP were pals. The two were romping around the yard and next thing we know here comes the Brit with a Banty Chicken Rooster in his mouth! Turned out it was the next door neighbor's prize Banty Rooster which was thankfully unharmed! I guess the two upland dogs were looking for something to do on a Sunday afternoon! That rooster never knew how close he came to meeting his maker as the Brit almost always did a kind of flip and toss and which resulted in a broken neck for any pheasant he retrieved.
 
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