Anyone have success free ranging with labs?

Not to discourage you but even after you train your own dogs you still have to worry about other peoples dogs . My suggestion is to build a good electric fence !Labs are wonderful animals! There is no doubt in my mind they can be trained if you're patient.Good luck!

ChickensComeHome2Roost said:

Not to discourage you but even after you train your own dogs you still have to worry about other peoples dogs . My suggestion is to build a good electric fence !Labs are wonderful animals! There is no doubt in my mind they can be trained if you're patient.Good luck!

Click to expand...

Thank you! Fortunately, other dogs are one of the lesser concerns as far as predators in my area. We are pretty remote - nothing but farm land around our house. Anything is possible of course, but I’ve only ever seen two other dogs since we moved in and they were being walked on leash by their owners.
We have an in-ground electric fence to keep our dogs in the yard, so I think if I can devise a way to let the chickens outside that boundary without getting in where the dogs are, they’ll be ok. Although I’ll have to think about raccoons and coyotes - those are pretty thick in my area.

Folly's place said:

Plan on taking time, as in months, at least!
Here we have about 1/2 acre fenced for the dogs, out the back door of the house. Serious fencing, after one of our adult rescues ignored the Invisible fence if chickens were available. He was the eighth dog we had on the IF system, and our first failure. We added 4' horse fencing, with electric tape above, and the IF about 3' inside the physical fence. Worked great, until a couple of years ago, when the 'mother board' failed, and a newer rescue dog dug under and killed MANY chickens! The IF was redone, and all is well since.
Our birds usually can range anywhere except inside the back yard fencing, although there are occasional losses to other predators.
This spring everyone is inside because of the avian influenza.
My chickens went right through two strands of hot wire last summer to get into the vegetable garden...
Electrified poultry netting works well, although we don't have a place to set it up effectively here. That might work to keep your birds and dogs apart.
Mary

Click to expand...

I’d be really interested to hear more about your set up with invisible fence and horse fencing. I think I’m following, but having a hard time picturing it. We have roughly 1.5 acres of yard, and dogs have access to about one full acre, so I don’t want to break the bank trying to make it work. We already have an off-brand invisible fence for the dogs. The larger one has blown the fence a few times but never to chase anything. He’s gone through only to follow us if we walk or take our UTV and get out of sight (he’s a baby ). The company that installed our fence had a guarantee and came out to re-train him. They also turned up the intensity of the correction a bit. He hasn’t gone through since. The main issue is he seemed to have figured out that if he musters up the courage and blasts far enough through, it stops shocking. So if he starts going through again, we’re going to look into a system that will continue correcting him until he gets back in the yard. The smaller dog (who is the one with a higher prey drive that I worry about more) is TERRIFIED of getting a correction. He stays as far as possible away from the boundary and the few times my husband has carried him across without it his collar so we could take them for a walk to the pond, he bolted back into the yard. We had to get out of eyesight of the house before he finally stopped trying to get back to the yard. I just need a way to keep the chickens from getting into the dog space.
With avian flu exploding so much, I’m going to be keeping the chickens in the run anyway. So I have plenty of time to work on fencing and training. We added a few new chicks to our flock (just moved to the coop but still separated from the rest). Our run is plenty big enough for them all but I’m sure with the extra bodies they would love to eventually get out and roam a bit.

This isn't our back yard, but shows the no-climb horse fencing with electrified tape on top. For the west side of our dog proofed back yard, we used the 4"x 4" woven wire goat fencing instead, much cheaper, and keeps our dogs inside just fine.
Because I wanted small critters to be able to escape, and the bottom of the fence to not rot too soon, it's a few inches above ground, not in the ground. This hasn't always kept our birds out, so be careful about how much ground clearance you allow.
The electric dog fence is about 3' inside this 'real fencing', so the dogs don't challenge the fence at all. Except the day that the IF failed, and 'cute little Bella' figured it out and dug out.

Mary

And I'm really good at pounding steel posts in straight! The horses and cattle are good at tipping them, so helpful!
Mary

Every dog I ever put in an underground fence got out so I gave up using them. Teaching your dogs not to kill chickens is a must.

This is a timely thread for me to read as my main concern with having chickens and a secure run is my neighbours (very sweet) lab (that would for sure kill chickens). Thanks for all the info in this.