Nicoliosis5
In the Brooder
Hi everyone.
I came home yesterday evening to what I'm 99% sure was the aftermath of a dog terrorizing my girls. They were all locked in the run so, it couldn't get to any of them, but they were all bloody anyways.
The game camera of course didn't have an SD card in it at the time so I can't say if it was a wild dog or a neighbor's dog, but I'm PRETTY SURE it was dog, and the tracks were in a big circle around the coop, like it was running around the coop/run.
No dig marks though, or any evidence of trying to get in, which is why I'm thinking it was a domestic dog messing with them as opposed to a wild one trying to get dinner.
So when the chickens get scared, they all try to pile up in the furthest corner away from what is scaring them. So I came home to 5 out of 6 chickens with broken and bloody beaks because they were trying to all get away and piling into the hardware cloth fence
We did clean up all the beaks and check them all out. One yesterday was acting very strange all evening, but seems better today. They all seem to be alright today, but we have one who is a little more lethargic than usual.
Here is an OLD pic of the run, when the girls were little, just dust bathing.. But so you get an idea of what the run is like: when they get scared, they will all run to the same corner in a frantic attempt to get the furthest away from the predator that they can. Which basically just ends up being all of them jamming their faces into hardware cloth fence and stepping all over each other.
I don't know who's dog this is, and I don't have a picture of it, so talking to a neighbor will be kind of hard unless I go door to door asking if they have a dog with about a 3" paw print...
I'm wondering if there's a way I can modify or move the coop/run (it's about 10 yards from the road right now) so that when this happens again, and they run away in fear, they will not feel as though they need to try to fit themselves through 1/2" hardware cloth to get away. If I make the run BIGGER, will they maybe not be so frantically huddling into a corner?
Here is a picture of one of the tracks, if anyone thinks it may have even been something else:
Lighter for size scale
Below I sort of outlined the track since it's not very well defined and the picture is not so clear.
Anyway, that's my story, and I;m hoping someone has an idea or two.
Thanks so much in advance!!
Signed,
Sad, frustrated chicken momma
I came home yesterday evening to what I'm 99% sure was the aftermath of a dog terrorizing my girls. They were all locked in the run so, it couldn't get to any of them, but they were all bloody anyways.
The game camera of course didn't have an SD card in it at the time so I can't say if it was a wild dog or a neighbor's dog, but I'm PRETTY SURE it was dog, and the tracks were in a big circle around the coop, like it was running around the coop/run.
No dig marks though, or any evidence of trying to get in, which is why I'm thinking it was a domestic dog messing with them as opposed to a wild one trying to get dinner.
So when the chickens get scared, they all try to pile up in the furthest corner away from what is scaring them. So I came home to 5 out of 6 chickens with broken and bloody beaks because they were trying to all get away and piling into the hardware cloth fence
We did clean up all the beaks and check them all out. One yesterday was acting very strange all evening, but seems better today. They all seem to be alright today, but we have one who is a little more lethargic than usual.Here is an OLD pic of the run, when the girls were little, just dust bathing.. But so you get an idea of what the run is like: when they get scared, they will all run to the same corner in a frantic attempt to get the furthest away from the predator that they can. Which basically just ends up being all of them jamming their faces into hardware cloth fence and stepping all over each other.
I don't know who's dog this is, and I don't have a picture of it, so talking to a neighbor will be kind of hard unless I go door to door asking if they have a dog with about a 3" paw print...
I'm wondering if there's a way I can modify or move the coop/run (it's about 10 yards from the road right now) so that when this happens again, and they run away in fear, they will not feel as though they need to try to fit themselves through 1/2" hardware cloth to get away. If I make the run BIGGER, will they maybe not be so frantically huddling into a corner?
Here is a picture of one of the tracks, if anyone thinks it may have even been something else:
Lighter for size scale
Below I sort of outlined the track since it's not very well defined and the picture is not so clear.
Anyway, that's my story, and I;m hoping someone has an idea or two.
Thanks so much in advance!!
Signed,
Sad, frustrated chicken momma
