Chicken Update
Its been awhile since I’ve posted about the chickens. They seem bigger to me every day but are far from full sized. I don’t have nearly as much to do for them now that they’ve been outside and its nice. I open their little door to let them out each morning into their fenced in area, make sure they have enought food and water and then I close up their door once they go in for the night. Thats all I NEED to do but I have been opening the big door and letting them run around the rest of the yard more and more, I usually give them any appropriate table scraps and we now check for Henrietta’s eggs (she is the only adult chicken and she lays about 2 out of 3 days since she has been with us). We found a problem this week, I went out into the back and found all 7 chickens had gotten into our fenced in backyard. This is bad because at least one of our 2 dogs would probably try to eat them (luckily the dogs were inside). I know the spot they crawled under and we can fix it but I’m a little worried that they’ll fly over the 4 ft fence in the future. Hopefully Casey and Reuben will have lost interest in the chickens by then.
As best I can remember our chickens didn’t fly to that much of a height. They were out of their coop during the days when the weather was nice and helped keep down the insect population by eating bugs and larvae. We had laid-back dogs that co-existed peacefully with them.
Do you have coyotes in your area? My mother has them in her vicinity now and used to worry about them when she had the small dogs. I found this about coyotes in NY on the web:http://nwco.net/08-AppendixBNuisanceSpecies/8-03-Coyotes.asp
I read about your dogs and the chickens. It might be easiest for you if you teach the dogs that the chickens are pets.. Dogs are usually open to the idea of other pets. My dog has been best pals with cats, lizards, chickens, babies & toddlers (LOL), to name a few. Sure, he likes to give cats and chickens a hard time.. but, he wouldn’t dream of hurting another member of his family pack. My pup is an experienced hunter who’s killed and eaten anything from little moles and chipmunks to large river rats and rabbits. But, he’s also well behaved. Depends on the dog, I spose!! Good luck with chicken vs dogs LOL