For centuries, pets have been an essential part of our lives—they are our companions, work partners, eyes and ears, and even source of food. Some pets demonstrate so much care that we often consider them as members of our family.
Dogs and chickens, for instance, are great social animals.
Chicken are excellent pets, plus you can depend on them for eggs, fertilizer, and home-grown meat. On the other hand, dogs have been security animals for humans for ages—scaring away criminals and dangerous wild animals.
But can you keep them together?
Yes, but it won’t be a walk in the park, especially at the beginning.
First, you’ll have to train your dog not to attack chickens. Second, keeping chickens requires you to clean their poops daily. Otherwise, your dog will eat them, and they can have some health issues.
This article will zero in on what may cause your dog to eat chicken poop, the health risks involved, and how to prevent this.
What Do I Do If My Dog Eats Chicken Poop
If you keep both chickens and dogs, you probably have noticed different inappropriate behaviors that your dog likes engaging in. Even so, the poop-eating habit (also called coprophagia) is perhaps the most disgusting of them all.
Dogs eat chicken poop for several reasons, such as lack of B vitamins in their meals, to hide their tracks from predators, as coping mechanisms when bored, or to draw your attention. However, the primary reason is why they devour chicken poop is because they enjoy its taste.
While your dog may have all the reasons to eat chickens’ poop, this habit is neither less disgusting or appropriate.
In fact, you should be worried about your dog’s health any time you spot it eating poop. Chicken poops, like any other excrete, may contain harmful bacteria, such as salmonella.
Poop-eating habits are very common in dogs—at least one out of every four dogs eats poop. This habit can result in breath issues, besides the obvious health problems.
So, why exactly does your dog eat poop?
1. Canine Coprophagia Causes
If your furry friend eats chicken-poop, there’s a good chance it’ll eat poops from other animals too—horse manure, your feces, theirs, or any other that they can access.
This is utterly disgusting to humans but absolutely normal for dogs. The cause of this behavior goes back many years and is associated with both psychology and physiology aspects.
Puppies, for example, use their mouths to explore and learn the world around them, and in the process, they often come by poop—which they may consume. So, they grow up thinking that it’s normal.
However, they should stop in adulthood, but if they don’t, the coprophagia problem may result from other factors.
2. A Balanced Diet
Your dog may eat poops because they lack some nutrients in their diet. If you don’t feed your dog with diets containing enough B Vitamin and adequate protein, they will look somewhere else—which may include in the poops.
Undigested protein nutrients can be found in feces forms, and your dog may sniff it out and eat the poop to top-up the nutrition deficiency in their diet. If you aren’t sure of the precise amount of protein or the exact types of food your dog needs, it would be wise to consult your vet.
3. Hide Their Tracks
At times dogs eat their poop for survival or, more important reasons. A dog may eat poop or other dogs to cover its tracks from its predators. Most dog predators have a complex olfactory nerve system that allows them to smell dog feces from a distance. The smell can scar their prey as well.
In this fashion, your dog eats exposed poop to protect itself and its family, including chicken poop.
4. Psychological Issues
The psychological issue is also a potential cause for coprophagia problems. Do not leave your pet by itself if you feel that it may be experiencing anxiety, fear, and different phobias. They often indulge in eating poop as a coping mechanism.
Dogs from a puppy mill or any other stressful environment may also develop coprophagia. Additionally, if they were abused in an environment, they might connect the poop “mess” and the previous abuse, causing them to attempt to fix it irresistibly.
5. They Want Attention
Dogs are attention-seekers and often can disrupt their owners when just to be attended to. They interact with us in different ways to establish a social connection with us—they can jump on furniture, vibrantly play with toys, or bark at us.
However, it would be best if you learned to give your dog attention even before doing any of that. Dogs learn through patterns, and if they sense that they have to do something before being attended to, you might be training it the wrong way.
They might do weird things, such as eating poop, to get your attention.
Be sure to give your canine buddy adequate attention, even before it seeks it. Play with them tag-war, fetch, hide-and-seek, chase or take them for walks—this will distract them from eating poop to get your attention.
6. A Matter of Taste
Most dogs find chicken poops quite tooth-some—it appeals to their taste buds. As a result, dogs will scavenge their environment to get the poop. This may come as a surprise, but it’s possibly the primary reason why your canine buddy loves eating chicken so much.
How Do I Stop My Dog From Eating Chicken Poop?
While dogs have many reasons to eat chicken poops, it’s still disgusting, and you should find ways to stop it.
Luckily, there are solutions for each of the anticipated reasons your dog may eat poop. However, some techniques will need more effort and time than others, but your patience will eventually pay.
1. Training Commands
Rigorous and systematic training is the most effective technique to stop your pup from eating poop. Incorporate the “drop it” and “leave it” commands in your training. If your dog masters these commands and you repeatedly quote them whenever they snatch up poop, then they are most likely to assume that poop is terrible. Additionally, you can teach them “no” among other command phrases, although these commands have different effectiveness levels.
2. Ruin the Taste
Another technique of stopping your dog from eating poop is by applying products that disgust your dog around the areas where the poops are likely to be.
If your chicken has a specified space, then set up a boundary around the area with bad-tasting and smelling products—your dog will stay out of such territories. Some of these products can be homemade. Hot pepper and lemon products, for example, produce strong tastes that your dog will not stand.
However, it would be wise to consult your vet before applying these products—they may also have side effects on your chicken.
3. Pick It Up
Picking up the poops can be tedious and slow, especially if you rear many chickens, but it’s also practical. Although you cannot remove all the feces, it will still cut down on the supply.
Regularly clean your chickens’ coop to prevent poop accumulation. Moreover, this will be important to your chickens’ health, as they can get sick in unclean environments.
What’s better, removing the poop can reduce the chances of your dog attacking chickens as they’ll have no motive of approaching the coop itself.
4. Burn Their Energy
Dogs can also eat poops when boredom kicks in or to express their nervous energy. In this case, find activities to engage your dog in to eliminate the boredom or burn the excess energy.
You can take them on long walks and runs or find rigorous games to engage them in. the goal is to burn down the excess energy, which improves their behavior. Plus, it has tons of health benefits for your dog.
5. Stay Persistent With Training
The sight of your dog eating poop can be very irritating. Furthermore, it makes their breath nasty, turning their sweet licks and kisses into a smelly and disgusting experience, not to mention the health issues associated with this habit. So, you got to do everything to stop your dog from eating any poop.
With proper, supervised, and continuous training, you can overcome this challenge. But if you are afraid that you can’ achieve it yourself, it’s time to consult your vet.
Related Questions
1. What Happens If A Dog Eats Chicken Poop?
Dogs can get Salmonella bacteria from poops from chicken. These intestine-infests bacterias cause Salmonella disease often manifests through vomiting, diarrhea, and more severe conditions. It can also be contracted from meat and excrete from other bacteria-carrying animals.
This bacteria can also affect humans so, if you neglect your dog, you are exposing yourself too.
2. Do All Dogs Eat Chicken Poop?
No, not all dogs eat chicken poop. However, they have to be constantly trained to detest all sorts of poop. Poop is not food, and consuming it might bear some harsh health consequences. However, poop-eating is very common in dogs, with at least one in every four dogs eating poop.
3. Is Chicken Poop Toxic?
Yes, chicken poop can contain various bacteria such as Campylobacter, which can cause campylobacteriosis. Humans can contract this disease from animals by coming into contact with affected dogs. Some of its symptoms include nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea.
4. Can Dogs Get Coccidiosis From Chickens?
No, while coccidiosis is species-specific. This means that the coccidiosis strains cannot be passed from chicken to dogs and vice versa.
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