# Dog and Chicken Question



## Utahgreenhead (Apr 28, 2009)

So the wife is totally bent on the idea of getting chickens for both the eggs and some responsibility learning for my kids. I'm worried that it might hurt my dogs drive for pheasants though. Does anyone on here have any experience with this? If I have to get after him for not harrasing the chickens, will he associate that with pheasants?


----------



## The Naturalist (Oct 13, 2007)

Utahgreenhead said:


> So the wife is totally bent on the idea of getting chickens for both the eggs and some responsibility learning for my kids. I'm worried that it might hurt my dogs drive for pheasants though. Does anyone on here have any experience with this? If I have to get after him for not harrasing the chickens, will he associate that with pheasants?


I've raised Pheasants, and Chickens, and had a good hunting dog around them. As long as you don't have the chickens running loose with the dog at the same time there shouldn't be a problem. I never had a problem. The dog would watch the pheasants in their pens, but knew he wasn't supposed to bother them. It never affected his hunting, in fact I think it actually made the dog more determined when he was in the field to find the feathery little rascals. So I would say go for it.
My preference for chickens are any of the varieties of Rocks, particularly the Barred Rocks. Buff Orps. are good too. They are good layers, and the young ones make good fryers.


----------



## cklspencer (Jun 25, 2009)

We got chicken for the same reason this year. We wanted the kids to learn that there is more to life then just playing and messing around. My dog can't seam to leave them alone so when the chicken are out the dog is in. I will say that just having the birds around seams to have made him more intune as to what is going on when we are out training. I say go for it.


----------

