Hunting Washington Forum
Other Hunting => Bird Dogs => Topic started by: Chet43 on February 01, 2021, 09:11:36 AM
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Have a 5-month-old pup and we raise chickens. The chickens roam the yard when they fly out of the pen or when we let them out, it is a very large yard about 1.3 acers. The pup wants to play with them but is aggressive and sometime hurts them or chases them all around the yard until the chickens are exhausted. OH, and getting pecked by the rooster and hens doesn’t phase the pup.
What are some ways to stop this?
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Shock collar....Either manual or bark activated ( They also do vibration and high pitched beeps before the shock)
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A good E-collar, I wouldn’t use a bark collar for this issue. Don’t go zero-100, start low. You need to be there and watch the dog, when he starts chasing hit the collar and pair it with a stern “NO.” I don’t know what kind of dog you have, but make sure you read about Collar Conditioning so you make sure you’re doing everything correctly.
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If you use a collar, you have to make sure the dog understands the correction before you use it, meaning start with something the dog understands it is supposed to do/not do. Make sure you research how to use the collar and train the dog with the collar before you just start shocking your dog.
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Is this a bird dog?
If its just some pet dog then ecollar and zap it.
If a bird dog....keep chickens in the pen, that'd be easiest but if you're determined you'll need to teach dog pigeons, quail, phez good...chickens bad, I wouldn't be zapping a young bird dog pup on the only birds it sees.
You need good brids like now! But yes you can have bird dogs and chickens, but you need good birds too.
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:yeah:.... the above post is spot on.... if you zap away on chickens first and expect a bird dog in the end, you'll be diappointed.
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50 years ago had a neighbor who raised fighting chickens and was pretty proud of his flock. Another neighbor had a dog that killed chickens. Needless to say there was a problem. The dog owner wired a dead chicken through the dogs ear and made the dog drag it till the chicken rotted off. The dog would run and hide if he even saw a chicken. End of problem!! Probably go to jail in todays world.
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50 years ago had a neighbor who raised fighting chickens and was pretty proud of his flock. Another neighbor had a dog that killed chickens. Needless to say there was a problem. The dog owner wired a dead chicken through the dogs ear and made the dog drag it till the chicken rotted off. The dog would run and hide if he even saw a chicken. End of problem!! Probably go to jail in todays world.
Thats funny I dont care who you are!
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Train the dog, and teach it what no means. An unattended pup gets into mischief all the time. Keep a young dog with you all the time, and it will be eager to please. I don't recommend shock collars. My 2 year old lab let's the chickens climb on her back, and she's hell on wheels hunting grouse. You can't expect a dog to know better unless you teach it what you want. Sounds like your pup is just bored, and needs some excitement in it's routine.
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When training our BlueHeeler, the BEST command the trainer taught us is ‘Stay Back’! Use it when crossing roads, seeing a snake or when she sees our daughters’ chickens.
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Dead chicken + pup in a barrel. Let em go for a roll together down a big hill. When they get to the bottom he aughta be chicken proof. If that doesn’t work then you didn’t use a big enough hill
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3rd the e collar it stops bad habits right away
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I broke all of my dogs (hounds, curs) with a shock collar by putting them in the pen with the chickens and zapping them when the chickens flapped, ran or made noise. It only took a couple minutes per dog and they learned right away. I never had an issue after that, except the chickens started coming on the porch and eating the dog food... The dogs were scared of them and would leave if they showed up.
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E collars are a great training tool if you are experienced with the use of one. They need to be put on the dog an hour before it is used on them so they don't associate the discipline with the collar instead of your expectation. If you dont they can be good when wearing a collar and bad when it is hung up. I would teach the dog no. I have had lots of very good bird dogs and always had chickens. They both lick the same egg at the same time and when you ask where the bird is they leave the chicken and go looking for the bird. I start teaching no at about 5-6 weeks. Hold the pup, place your fingers around the snout, squeeze only hard enough to cause discomfort the whole time saying NO! in a stearn voice. Do this until the pup is squirming. Only takes about 5-10 seconds. Release and pet the pup telling it is a good dog. It will wiggle and forget about the event but always associate no with the discomfort. I have used this for 40 years. My dogs will turn away from a T bone set at there feet. It will work on dogs of all ages. You may have to do it several times until they respond to no without discipline. I do this to every litter before they leave. My pups at 7-8 weeks can be placed on a dog bed, set up for failure and when they attempt to leave the bed say no and they stay all day with no effort. If you have questions pm me
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Thanks for all the info. I have read most of them but will read the rest tomorrow.
This is a poodle pup that is going to be trained for bird hunting.
As far as the one comment about keeping the chickens in the pen, this hasn't worked. Sense the original post the pup has learned to climb the gate and it will move back from the fence; take a couple of bounds then leap as high as it can; hook it's front paws on the top or near the top and pull itself up and over the fence, which is 4 & 1/2 feet high.
It also ran into the fence testing to see if it was secured properly, we know this because we observed the pup doing this by going around the fence and running into it until it found a weak spot and then the pup kept hitting that part of the fence unti it could get in. This problem has been fixed.
Besides we want the chickens to run once in a while because the eggs taste way, way better when the chickens are allowed to run the yard a couple of times a week than when they're kept couped up in the pen, even though it'd a fairly large pen. We have tested this and found it to be true.
So if all the rest of the post are similar to the ones I have already read it's time to buy an E-collar
Thasnks again for all the help we really appreciate the information.
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Good thread, we are having that problem right now with a 9 month old 120# Greater Swiss... she is just playing, but can't get her to stop....
50 years ago had a neighbor who raised fighting chickens and was pretty proud of his flock. Another neighbor had a dog that killed chickens. Needless to say there was a problem. The dog owner wired a dead chicken through the dogs ear and made the dog drag it till the chicken rotted off. The dog would run and hide if he even saw a chicken. End of problem!! Probably go to jail in todays world.
My dad always tells me that my grandpa did that when my dad was a kid.... he said it worked, the dog wouldn't even look at a chicken after that.
