The great hen and rooster massacre of 2015

[ICB42]

This morning we had a sad day we had 8 hens and 1 BEAUTIFUL Easter egg rooster and one our dogs got into the pen and another one of our dogs help and killed all felt for one that we call Nemo. Nemo has 1 wing from a previous attack. The sad part is the hens had just started producing eggs. Today we are going to get some more and make the pen mor secure. The dog that go into the pen we are pry gonna get rid of. She's a bulldog and we found her so we aren't to attached. These are the risks we take with having the dogs and chickens. Any advice with these new chicks??

 

[lindalouly]

So sorry to hear.... I would rehome the dog if you aren't attached.... Good luck on your next flock.... Maybe you can find older pullets.

 

[ICB42]

Yea we are going to rehome her we got 6 Americans and 6 black sex links and then another Easter egg rooster... Gonna try again... Just bummed :/

 

[Lady Grey]

Oh! I'm so sorry. Stupid dog.

 

[ICB42]

At least she's gonna go to a good home! I found someone for her. So I'm not upset we haven't had her for that long so I'm not attached. I love her but it's money that just went down the drain!

 

[microchick]

Condolences.

Can't blame a dog for acting like a dog.

The best advice I can offer is two words HOT WIRE!

We have 5 dogs and they won't go near the coop or run thanks to the hot wire we have around our birds. Nearly every one of them has come into contact with it with their noses and each one of them thinks those birds are the poultry equivalent of Rambo with an AR15 in each hand crossed with Walker Texas Ranger. It also is a great deterent for wild varmints.

We have a single wire strung 6 inches above the ground and we are thinking of adding a second wire.

Hope things work out with your new flock. I've learned to play devil's advocate though and ask myself what could go wrong, then try to fix whatever it is before it happens, still sometimes things just happen.

 

[ICB42]

We did, but the dog was a bull dog, and shes been trying to get at the chickens for a while. Not to mention we have 6 dogs already. I don't blame her, because she is a dog, and that is what they do but she had the mentality of she wasn't going to stop till she got what she wanted. Plus I'm about to have another baby here any day now, so we ended up rehoming her. It was crazy though because when I got home, my husband called me to the back yard, and we had two survivors, our chicken that we call Nemo who already lost her wing, but there was another one of our hens that survived! This hen was hiding in one of our bushes that has thorns, so she was hiding. We ended up getting another 12 chicks and one easter egg rooster. I'm excited, we got 6 of the Barred Standard Plymouth Rocks I think is what they are and then we got 6 of the Ameraucana chickens. I'm excited, but bummed because two of the hens just started laying eggs each and every day on a regular basis, so we have learned. I am ready to start this new journey, and we have learned from it, and plan on making the coop more secure, as well as making sure that we train our two bigger dogs not to mess with the chickens and to make sure that they stay safe as well. A few days before this happened we bought 4 chicks from our local feed store as well, so we have 16 in all plus 1 rooster and the two that survived so 19 in all. This is the new ones that we got the other day

 

[slipshift]

So sorry about your babies, we have had that happen from owls and coyotes. We have 4 dogs and we introduce them to the chicks when they are a few days old. All the dogs do is smell them but they realize the chickens are pets, more or less. The dogs are self-appointed wardens, breaking up rooster fights, unfortunately they think a rooster on a hen is a fight so they discourage that also. We took in a stray dog that started killing chickens after we got some new puppies (jealous?), so we had to put him down before he started hurting the puppies too.

Jim

 

[ICB42]

The dogs we have no don't mess with the chickens because they cant get to them, so they don't bother, unless me or my fiancee are going out there to feed them, and if that is the case then its my fiancee (as I am gonna give birth any day now, and I am not as mobile as i was...but if the one has the chance he will go after them if he is able to get to them. We are currently reworking the coop since the chickens are inside until they get a little bit bigger. We have two hens that survived anyone have any idea as to how to introduce newer chickens to the older ones, once we are ready to put them outside??