Chickens and dogs & cats

Posted by louisa on Wednesday 27 April 2011 in chickens | 9 comments

A few people have asked me – offline and on – about what our dog and cats think of the chickens – and what the chickens think of them.

The dog

I won’t deny it – their relationship was a little fraught at first. Lily-dog was very excited by the hens – and if let into the airlock (the space between the enclosed run and the rest of the garden), she would grunt & nose the chicken wire looking for a weakness. The chickens would squawk and flutter away, which made her even more excited – she doesn’t tend to chase things unless they run from her, then game on. I took her in to meet them a couple of times: I’d have her on a very short leash and she would be fine with them – sniffing the birds and their poo piles on the floor – for a while, then would bolt at them and I would very quickly eject her from the run. I had to make sure she was firmly behind a locked gate before I let the chickens loose in the garden, even in their portable run because she’d nudge at it with her nose. I suspect she’d wouldn’t have known how to undo the feathery wrapping if she had ever got hold of one but I don’t doubt she’d have given it a good chewing to find out.

Lily is generally a very gentle dog though so I hoped that in time, she’d settle down – and she has. There has been a definite “friends not food” shift over the last few weeks – I’m not sure what caused it (familiarity? boredom? being called a bad girl for bolting?) but she doesn’t seem to have any interest in chasing them any more.

A few months ago, this scene would have scared the heck out of me:

But you know why she’s looking at them like that? it’s because they’re in the way:

She wanted to run down the path to the beck and they were hogging the steps – she ran by as soon as the path was clear.

She’ll sit in the run while I’m cleaning the coop out and hardly even deign to look at the feathered ones – just happy to be next to me (there is nothing like a dog with separation anxiety to make you feel like the most special person in the world). When they’re loose in the garden, she’ll watch them more closely – but as if she’s doing me a favour, being a watchful hen-nanny, rather than a predator (this is typical of her – she tattle-tails on the cats if they’re scratching somewhere they shouldn’t).

And what of the chickens – what do they think of the round hound? They divide into two camps – the brave ISA Browns (Lime, Green & Blue) on one side and the more flighty girls on the other. The brave bunch don’t bat an eyelid around her – as the picture above kinda shows. The other four keep out of her way – stay on the other side of the run while she’s in there, or jump up onto a perch – but they’re not freaked out and squawking, which I think helps Lily stay calm too.

The cats

Almost from day one, the cats have been indifferent towards the chickens when they’re in their run or thereabouts. They can’t easily be food and they aren’t a threat, so who cares? When they’ve seen them loose in the garden, they’re a bit more interested but about three seconds after I took that picture, Boron had a bit of a wash and wandered away – not exactly fixated.

(Boron was once feral but once he no longer had to hunt to survive, he quickly gave up that pursuit. He is about ninety-hundred years old now and had to have his teeth removed because of gum problems so I don’t really worry for the chickens’ safety when he’s around.)

Our neighbours have cats too – and one of the them, a giant fluffy tom cat called Daisy, often sits about 6ft from the run, watching the chickens through the fence. He’s got the youthful vigour and muscle to do more damage than Boron but I think he just likes Chicken TV — a few weeks ago, he and his brother suddenly appeared when two of our chickens were loose in the garden. I saw their eyes widen but, like with ours, they realised it wasn’t worth the effort when there was some already bitesized, feather-free meat pieces in a dish in their house. Meat that can’t do this if cornered:

So in summary, the cats & dog couldn’t really care less about the chickens – I’m not sure I’d leave any of them locked in the run with the chickens for an extended period of time but they’re happy enough pottering around the garden together, and I’m happy enough with that.

Do you have other animals as well as chickens? How do they get along?