Bear killed a little chicken

[larryfoster]

At least, I'm pretty sure.

He was in the weeds gnawing on it.

This was one of my young peeps that escaped the pen.

 

Do I need to get rid of him or can he be saved?

He has been quite attracted to them since we introduced him.

[Smalahundur]

I am assuming right that "Bear" is the name of your dog and not an actual bear?

Your dog can be "saved", you can hardly blame him for grabbing an escaped chick imo.

Build a better coop, train the dog the chicks are off limits (but don´t trust them alone together of course).

That he is attracted to moving small animals is very natural.

[larryfoster]

Sorry.
Bear is my 4-1/2 month old BC.

I free range chickens.

My older BC chases (herds) but has never harmed one.

She is a little aggressive but can be called off.

 

I didn't catch Bear in the act of killing but gnawing on a carcass.

 

Thanks for your reply.

[Riika]

All my dog have killed chickens when they've been puppies, except the current 5 month old Kate. I think the trick is to not allow pups to access chickens unsupervised until they are mentally mature, be that 2 years old. It's up to you to figure out how to do that.

 

Punishing the dogs in any way has never worked for me. (Except in the case of the pup blindly chasing the chicken right past me and I dropped an empty bucket on her head) Management alone has given me success.

[waffles]

Management, recall training and don't let a young pup in with little chicks.

One of our dogs will chase the chickens if we aren't supervising her. Chasing is not herding and I wouldn't allow my dogs to stress my hens out like that for the pups enjoyment. Keep the puppy on a long line while near the chickens to prevent more chasing. Proof a recall away from the chickens so eventually you can call him off.

[D'Elle]

IMO- you cannot blame such a young puppy for killing a small chick that was running free. If the dog even killed the chick. As you said, you don't know what happened.

 

Train the dog to ignore the chickens, and build an escape proof pen for them. Don't let any escape or run free in front of the dog.

Also, chasing chickens is not herding. It is chasing, and is not good for the chickens or for the dog, and can bring results that you won't like.

[larryfoster]

Thank you for the good information and tips.

 

My chickens do free range during the day so I'm going to have to deal with the pup another way

 

My 3 yo BC does "chase" or "herd" to round the chickens up in the evening to pen them up.

 

I've had several dogs that never harmed chickens.

My last German Shepherd killed several.

She was an AKC ruined dog and the only thing that saved her was my kids.

 

I'm going to have to resolve not letting my dogs out to run free

[Donald McCaig]

Dear Mr. Foster,

 

Good idea. My Border Collies aren't out long (10 minutes?) until I'm with them. They get exercised twice every day at daybreak and dusk. Out to pee (with me) once or twice more. If I'm working off machines in the farmyard I'll let them be with me.

 

There's nothing good they can do without us.

 

Donald McCaig

[larryfoster]

This event happened while I was out working on a project and pretty much leaving the two dogs to hang out.

Usually, call the dogs every few minutes to keep them close

 

My older collie just wanted to play stick.

At one point, Bear didn't come when called and I even hopped in the truck to try to find him.

He was sitting on the porch when I came back from looking.

 

I found him with the dead bird the second time I couldn't find him a few minutes later.

I suspect that's where he was the first time, too.

Or in my brush pile where I burn near my coop because his legs were covered in soot type stuff.

 

Always figured once they get a "taste" it's hard to break them

[denice]

Sounds like the first order of business is teaching him to come Every time he is called. Dogs can get themselves in trouble in a hurry, pups twice as fast. Chasing things that move away from them is natural for dogs, be that rabbits or chickens or something else. I think the fix always requires work and commitment on our part. No two ways around it. You have to supervise which means he needs to be where you can see him or put up where he cant get in trouble. At 5 mo old he is starting to explore and learn boundaries as to acceptable behavior. You can not teaching him what is and is not allowed when he is out of sight. I have built a puppy play yard so the young dogs can be outside playing with toys ect but can't get themselves in trouble for those times I can not watch them and do not feel it is fair to them to be in a kennel or crate.

The more time you spend with him teaching him what is right the less time he available to learn behaviors on his own that you may not want

[larryfoster]

Thanks, everyone, for your continued patience.

 

I was thinking that this problem has been so rare for me in the past that, maybe, I was lucky and had some dogs better than me.

 

Regardless, he will need closer watch.

 

I'm still trying to run the scenario through to determine if he was the killer or just found it.

 

That peep may have been in that brush pile for as much as 2 nights.

It may have just died there from exposure.

Peeps are only 6 weeks old and I just started to let them out of the fence.

 

Over the years I've lost a fair number of birds to predators.

This one wasn't torn apart like they are if this was the case.

 

Bear was caught with the dead bird.

Can't say if he was playing or eating

[Gloria Atwater]

Of course Bear can be "saved." It's a management issue, not a get-rid-of-the-dog issue.

 

Border collies are bred to key off of movement and chickens definitely have some very interesting movements and noises - especially to a 4 month old pup. He could have pounced and killed it without even meaning to. Or as you say, he could have found the carcass and decided to investigate the gnawing possibilities it offered. That's simply nature at work. He's not a bad dog, he's a normal dog.

My dogs are all "good" with the chickens. My Aussie and my 2 year old BC pup pretend they don't even see them, while my older two BCs would like to "herd" them, but will ignore them if I say the word. However, I would never dream of leaving any of my dogs alone with my chickens unsupervised. All dogs are ultimately predators - (people forget that and then they get a call that Fido just killed a sheep) - and I would never for one minute expect my "nice" dogs to be 100% reliable when alone with a noisy, reactive prey animal like a chicken.

Again, your pup is a young border collie. They get interested in things that move, it's what they do. Our job as humans is to be responsible managers of our animals, and that includes preventing situations that a dog cannot reasonably be expected to resist. Best of luck!
Respectfully,

Gloria

[Sue R]

^^ This.

[larryfoster]

Thanks all for all of the insight

[juliepoudrier]

I guess my experience is different. Until I moved where I live now my dogs *always* shared space with my free range chickens. They were taught from puppyhood that chickens (or chicks) are not to be chased or bothered in any way. Teaching them to leave the chickens alone (unless directed to do something with them) never affected their willingness or ability to work the chickens if I asked them to do so (and they were willing to work poultry).

 

It certainly *is* all about management, but I disagree that a dog can never be left alone with the poultry. My multiple working border collies (from 4-5 weeks old on up) always coexisted with my poultry without anything getting killed.

 

Just my two cents.

 

J.

[Solo33]

My puppy was about 6 months old when we first got chickens. While in the house, we'd let the chicks out and Solo would be curious and sniff them. If he was ever starting to get wild or hyper with them because their movements were so fast, he was verbally reprimanded, and he just seemed to understand what was acceptable after that.

 

Now the chicks are fully grown and outside. They have a coop, a pen, and sometimes we let them out to free range. Sometimes a rooster will go toward him, which makes him jump back and think they are playing. We took video of it once and then I decided that was a dangerous behavior because a rooster could hurt him. He's never put his mouth on one of the chickens (or ducks) that we have.

 

I do trust him alone with the ducks and chickens in the yard. What I don't trust is the roosters!

 

I just bought 24 Indian runners for Solo for herding training. That and I just love runners! He is very willing to move any poultry, but now I need to start teaching him correctly in a round pen.

[larryfoster]

Molly, the older collie, just loves her chickens.

 

She had a perfectly round track worn around the outside of the chicken pen.

It was less than 1' wide and worn into the ground a couple inches packed.

 

We used her to bring the chickens out of the brush so we could put them away at night.

She was, sometimes, a little aggressive but never put one in her mouth.

 

I've sort of decided that Bear may be innocent and just found the carcass