What is it with dogs and chickens? After losing one or two chickens to my own dog, I put up a strand of electric fencing (Garden Gard), just inside of the dog pen. My neighbor said to hook it up to his fence. I tried that, and found out that his fence wasn't hot. He was out of town for the week so I just put off doing anything with it, she seemed to be wary of the wire already. (She is really bad about digging out). Yesterday, around 11:00, I looked out and saw that she had gotten out, I just happened to glance overat the coop and seee that there were NO chickens in it!!!! Rats,Rats,Rats, I said as I ran out to find that she had tried to dig into their coop, where by they flew the coop literally!! She had killed 2 more by the time I got out there, I found 3 in the woods, but was unable to find the 4th,dead or alive. I put the 3 back in and secured the coop better, the dog of course was in the shed by then. I sure hadn't planned on butchering chickens that day. I spent the rest of the afternoon getting that fence hot!!!!!! I was mad at her and mad at myself for not doing it earlier. When I finally got it hooked up, I went around to the front of the house and ran back to my bedroom window where I can see the dog pen. She immediatly went to dig out, and you should have seen her jump. (I hate to say it but I was glad I got to see it!) She didn't yelp or anything, but she hasn't tried to dig out again.It was great to sleep and know that she wasn't going to be out barking at people,killing chickens, or chasing horses,(she is a st. Bernard). Now I just need to find somemore chickens. Well that's my saga, I hope it helps someone with their dog and chicken problem. Thanks for all the info that I can get here and in the magazine. Tina

-- Susan n' Emily, in Tn (animalcrackers55@hotmail.com), July 10, 2001

Answers

I love electric fence! Works when all else fails. Wish we had started out with it at the beginning, rather than spend thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours on all the rest.

-- Shannon at Grateful Acres Animal Sanctuary (gratacres@aol.com), July 10, 2001.

My husband installed an electric fence for a customer this past week. That customer had gotten a little charger and half-mile of wire for $29.95 somewhere! Husband says it works great! He installed it about six inches off the ground because the dogs were digging out and so far now there hasn't been any problem.

We built a bigger chain link fence (with cedar posts---I dug most of the post holes) for our dogs nearer the woods and in the thre emonths they've been in it they haven't tried to dig out. If they do we'll probably do an electric fence with a solar charger which costs about $99.

We have our chickens in an enclosure that has chicken wire over the top too. it has cement blocks around the outside bottom of the fence so it's harder for anything to dig in. Also we have dog wire around the bottom part of the chicken wire (in addition to the chicken wire) so it would be harder for dogs or coyotes to get THROUGH the fence.

I have 25 chicks that I got which were one day old this spring and they are ALL still alive and fat and sassy! This is my first year for chickens and I am thrilled! 20 are gold comets and five are easter-egg chickens! We wanted them for layers. I will sell the extra eggs because people are waiting in line for what I don't use already but they haven't started laying yet.

sorry about your chicks! We have to worry about stray house cats, raccoons, coyotes and other things here too so that's why I built their enclosure as sturdy as I could!

-- Suzy in Bama (slgt@yahoo.com), July 10, 2001.

I guess we are very lucky. Our chickens free-range and our dogs are not penned up. The dogs ignore the chickens. We just trained them that way; introduced them slowly and carefully and made sure that they knew that the chicks were off-limits. Both the dogs and the chickens are secured in their pens at night. The dogs have never left the property in two and a half years and we are 1.2 miles from our closest neighbor so they are not bothering anybody.

One our chickens is starting to hatch out chicks----4 so far. It sure is a whole bunch easier doing it that way than buying the chicks by mail. I like the chicken doing all the temperature adjustment etc.

-- Doug in KY (toadshutes@yahoo.com), July 10, 2001.

I remember folks wiring a dead chicken or two to the collar of a chicken killing dog and letting them stay on there until they rotted off. Don't recall it doing any good, just made the dog extremely unpleasant to be around, in fact, it seemed like the dog rather enjoyed it. . .

-- Paul (hoyt@egyptian.net), July 10, 2001.

Sooner or later the hot wire is going to fail. Build a proper dog run. Cement floor, chain link sides and TOP. Then you will have a secured pen. Hope you can solve this. It's just the pits to have a not=so=smart-dog. Good luck.

-- Little Quacker (carouselxing@juno.com), July 11, 2001.

Never tried it,but just thinking about the system they have to keep your dog on your property with the collar and the wire buried around your property to keep him in,would it work if you buried the wire around the chicken yard to keep him out while he wore the collar? Probaly a little more expensive than the electric fence. Just thinking of ideas,if anyone tries it let us know.

-- Mary (marwel@microserve.net), July 12, 2001.

I have tried the invisible fence. Heidi did well with it while she was alone, but when we got the other dog they ended up chewing the collars off of each other!!!! I knew that she would respond well to the electric fence, I don't know why I waited so long. What a relief to know that she is contained. Thanks for the input, Susan

-- Susan n' Emily, in Tn (animalcrackers55@hotmail.com), July 13, 2001.

We have the underground fencing for our dog. She is a Pointer (bird dog) and we have 30 chickens. I raised the chickens from eggs and also from day old chicks. Our dog has been trained that the chickens are off limits. I still do not trust her though, because of her blood line. The underground fencing works wonderfully. Make sure that you keep the fence on the highest setting though. You want to make sure it REALLY hurts the first couple of times they get shocked.

-- t. pedro (JohnPedro2@aol.com), July 16, 2001.