As mentioned elsewhere, Adi has a history of playing with chickens in a way that results in dead chickens. The chickens are kept within a movable netting fence, that the dogs have been trained to respect as a boundary.
One day last spring, as we were leaving the property, I saw Adi was inside the chicken enclosure. I headed down there as fast as I could, calling out to him all the time, hoping and praying that he would leave them alone… To my amazement, when I got there, he was trying to find his way out. The chickens were all there and did not appear stressed at all. I couldn’t see how he had got it, the fence was not bent over. After inspecting it closer, there were some holes in the fence – had Adi got through one of those?
As Adi seemed to be so chilled with the chickens, I decided to start training him to get used to being among them. It seemed that some creature was enjoying nibbling through the netting, so while I sat and mended the holes in the fence, I had Adi with me on a long leash and let the chickens out, to roam freely outside their enclosure.
I spent many hours doing this, as more holes would appear. Adi ignored the chickens, even if they were close to him, or squawked or flapped their wings. I was delighted and amazed with how well Adi was doing, how he had changed!
When we moved the netting to a new place after the summer, the holes got bigger and more frequent. I reckoned it was rodents using the netting to wear down their teeth. We set traps but caught nothing.
Adi made his way into the enclosure a couple more times, through large freshly-made holes, and when I called him he came out again, with no drama. He ignored the chickens, which was great!
During autumn and winter I spent hours upon hours mending the chicken netting. It was time consuming and very frustrating. I noticed also that the chickens adopted a new habit of tossing over their food containers and dragging them out of the run. It was weird, this had never happened in previous years I’d kept chickens but now it was a regular occurrence. The containers hooked onto the wire mesh of the run and were specifically made to fit and stay put. However, the chickens had managed to find a way of upsetting them and clearly turned this into a game.
In late December, I finally realised that it was not the chickens who were upsetting their feed containers. I found a container a few metres from the door of the run, with a straight trail of grain, like the gunpowder trail on sees in cartoons. There is no way chickens could carry or push the container out in such a straight line! It had to be a dog… and that dog would be Adi. Adi has a history of getting into the chicken food sacks, which ended when I bought large bins to secure the feed in. It also clicked that I was going through a lot more food of late, more than would just be wasted on the ground… and Adi looked decidedly rotund, despite it being well after fig and chestnut season. Everything clicked into place in my mind – why had I not seen this before?!
My theory was confirmed within the next few days when I observed tooth marks on the green container. I marvelled that Adi had gone from chicken killer to sneaking into their enclosure to eat their food!
When it was dry, it was easy enough to remove the containers from the run as the chickens have a metal treadle feeder that Adi can’t get into. However, when it rains, the grain can get clogged, so I need to use the green plastic containers – the ones Adi goes for. This meant closing the run every night and opening it up every morning when it was raining, or making sure Adi stayed indoors.
Meanwhile, on and off, the holes kept on occurring. It was incredibly frustrating and time consuming. Thank goodness the chickens were happy to stay within the enclosure and didn’t venture out, and the other dogs were trained not to venture in. We had a lot of rainy and windy weather, which meant I did not spend time outside on the fence.
Initially I’d used nylon string to mend the holes, but that was chewed through also. The most effective method, I found, was to patch it with plastic mesh made up of little squares, the type used to protect fruit trees from birds. It was time-consuming, but it worked; the creatures did not chew on that for some reason. Finally, I caught up with all the hole-mending on the 51m length of netting.
The very next morning, when I went down to the chickens, I was dismayed to see a brand new hole right beside my most recently mended patch. This hole was made by something having chewed straight down in a vertical line, one string after the other. The chicken food container was in the middle of the enclosure.
In a flash I realised that it was Adi who had been chewing at the fence all along. Initially, the holes had been random and small, but as he practised over time learned, refining his technique, the holes had become deliberately targeted and large.
No wonder the live traps repeatedly failed to catch anything!
I felt frustrated and angry because of all the hours I’d wasted away mending the fence, time I could have invested in far more productive things. I felt very angry with Adi and ignored him. It was not until the next day that I went to him, feeling softness in my heart and love for him. I spoke to him gently saying that he had to stop this, that this could not carry on. I patched the new hole.
So, I surmised, if the problem was those green containers, then I had to remove the problem. I took the containers from the run and brought them up to the house, leaving them out in full sight so he’d see them, empty, where they were.
The next day there was a new hole, on the North East corner of the netting – most holes are on the South side. I deliberately left that hole open so that Adi could get in and see that there was no food to be had – he would only have chewed another hole, anyway.
A day or two later, on the morning of the 15th February 2021, I got up and decided to clean out the fireplace, to have it ready for lighting. I went outside to retrieve the ash bucket and on the way back to the house, I heard our Mastiff barking. I looked over and saw her luminously light form running around inside the chicken enclosure. I quickly grabbed the headlamp, donned shoes and rushed down to the enclosure in my dressing gown.
Our Mastiff was inside the enclosure and held a chicken in her mouth, Margot. Adi was on the other side of the enclosure, looking on. Margot was dead and our Mastiff growled as she guarded the body. I took the body from her and checked the coop; three chickens were in there alive.
Underneath the coop I saw Renée’s dead body. One chicken was missing, Amparo. I looked around and saw her feathers in a couple of places but nothing more.
I went up to the house and got dressed, then returned to the enclosure and crawled in to retrieve Renée’s body. I inspected the netting and saw that there was a large, brand new hole on the southern side, close to a large smattering of Amparo’s pale grey feathers. Why had another hole been made when there was still an open one by the corner? There was no sign of Amparo’s body. Our Mastiff would be guarding it if it were around; where was it? I looked closely through the feathers and saw a chunk of skin and another with some skin and bone. She had been eaten there.
Had Adi done this? Could it have been a fox? Some other animal? It all pointed to Adi, though I was loathe to condemn him based on circumstantial evidence. My mate and I both had the same idea, we needed to check Adi’s poo to see if he had eaten Amparo.
I kept Adi contained that day. In the evening I took him for a walk on the leash. I saw the familiar signs that he was looking for a place to poo and he did. I tied him to a bush and inspected his poo, it looked like it contained feathers. There again, what if it was grass? I took two sticks and pried the poo apart. There I saw a grey nail and the end of a finger, Amparo’s finger. It seemed surreal, to be pointing at Adi as the culprit, or herself as the consumed victim.
So, that sealed it. I can only imagine that when Adi didn’t find the green food containers he stuck his head into the coop and the chickens started fretting… and his prey drive was aroused. It became a game and three chickens were killed. The worst thing is that he ate one. I think he may have only ever done this once or twice before, a long time ago, and I was never sure.
This time, I am sure. He has learned that there is more than chicken food to be eaten in the hens’ enclosure and he will be back for more.
I will not keep my chickens inside a fixed run. I want them to be as free range as possible and the movable fence is the best way to ensure this.
[The following text is also at the end of the long version]
Since then, I lock the chickens into their run every night. I also make sure that there is no food that he can access, nothing to reward his getting into their enclosure.
However, Adi still continues to bite holes in the fencing to get inside. Perhaps he eats the chicken poo on the ground and that is his motivation and reward. If I keep him inside at night, then we’re fine, but if I let him out (and he often asks to be let out, so he can go and bark and creatures on the other side of the property fence, which is also his job) then invariably I’ll find that he’s made another hole in the fencing, or two. Also, there have been times when he’s bitten a hole in the fencing during the day.
- The movable netting is an intrinsic part of my chicken keeping and the best way I can give them an almost free-range lifestyle, while keeping them safe from the dogs.
- The holes mean that the chickens can get out and if they do, they won’t be safe from the dogs.
- The holes also mean that the other two dogs can be tempted to go in, a behaviour they never exhibited until Adi started making holes to access that area.
- I literally don’t have the time to mend all the holes that Adi continues to make. I have wasted so much time on this over the past year to year and a half, making repairs.
There is a lot of freedom here, for all the animals. The other two dogs were puppies of six and eight weeks old when I got them; Adi was eight months old. I was able to train and accustom them in ways that I have not been able to with Adi.
Over the years I have made many allowances and changes because of Adi. On a number of occasions I have thought that I should rehome him, because he does not fit into the very free lifestyle that we enjoy here. However, I always relented and instead strived to find ways make it work.
I have reached the point where, with great sadness, I recognise that Adi does not fit in here, with the way that we live. It works with the other animals but not with him. On Monday, when the chickens were killed, I felt no anger, only sadness.
We wish that things could have been different, to have Adi spend the rest of his life with us. I have spent so many hours, days, weeks and months, over these 4 1/2 years to train, rehabilitate and condition Adi. He has come very far, compared to what he was like when he first came to us, and the first years even.
I hope that all the time I have spent on him is a worthy investment so that he can spend the rest of his days with a person and/or family who love him and give him the environment and attention that he needs in order to thrive.