Having your animals get along is essential for their wellbeing. Multiple species can happily live together if gone about it correctly.
Here on our property, we let all of our animal’s free range. So, in one pasture there are ducks, geese, turkeys, chickens, dogs, and a donkey. It took a conscience effort to make sure everyone was in a safe environment but it’s much easier in the long run.
Introduce them at a young age:
When buying your animals, think about buying them all at the same time so they can grow up together. Our last batch of birds we got we bought ducks, chickens, and turkeys and they all are buddies and forage in the field together because they don’t know any different. To them it is normal to have all these different types of animals around.
Make them spend time together supervised:
Dogs are often predators of birds, but they don’t have to be if you teach them that they are your pets as well. Our dogs were older when we first got chickens, so they weren’t raised around them.
When we first got our chick’s home, we got the dogs and took them to the chick’s so they could observe and smell them. We did this for a week and each time we would show love to both parties so they could see they we wanted the birds around and so should they.
It’s amazing what dogs can understand. I think after the first day they would have been fine but to really drive the point home we did a week to be extra safe. We haven’t had any issues with the dogs bothering or harming the chickens. They treat them the same as my kids.
As for the donkey, supervision was essential for the commingling process. Donkeys aren’t very big fans of dogs or birds. When we first introduced them, we had the donkey in a round pen so the birds and dogs could observe from a close but safe distance and the donkey couldn’t trample them. As the days went by, they learned each other’s boundaries and respect each other. They may not like each other, but they do co-exist in peace.
I think the supervised introduction and encouragement of safety and comfort from the owner is the best way for an ideal outcome. You could have any kind of animals live together if you’re willing to put in the effort!
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