All our chickens killed in the middle of the day!

[Fluffnpuff]

I've had this happen to me before and it makes me furious just thinking about it. In my jurisdiction we fortunately have a fair amount of legal protection for this type of behavior. Not sure if your state has something similar but where i'm at if you catch someone's dog on your property you can call county animal control and they will confiscate the dog and fine the owner. They get one grace period where if they pay the fine they can get the animal back but if it happens again they can't get it back.

I have a large coyote/wild pig live trap from tractor supply that i use for this very purpose. I've caught multiple dogs from irresponsible neighbors .25 to .5 miles down the road and turned them all over to local authorities. Letting animal control handle it is more preferable to shooting the dog since we live in a lawsuit crazy world. I'm sure some people would sue the owner of chickens because when their dog chewed them up it gave them cavities.

If animal control hauls it off you have far less legal liability.

 

[MeepBeep]

As I said documentation is always better but if I see my animals being harmed I'm not reaching for a camera to take pictures first before I take care of the problem...

 

[SN225]

Thanks so much everyone. We are not convinced it was our neighbors dogs, although not completely ruling it out. Sometimes dogs that belong to the people down the road get loose and head our way too, so there is no real way to know. My husband does plan on talking to the neighbor though to see if they saw anything strange or any dogs/animals walking around and see what they say. They are actually his family which makes everything so much harder. No boundaries and we own 15 acres, so as much as I'd love to put a 20 ft fence around our entire property, it just isn't feasible! Do you think a dog would eat the head off one chicken, and eat half of the other? We originally thought fox (there is one around here and killed our friends chickens up the road last week) but just seems weird to be out mid day. I've only seen him once actually and that was middle of the night. My step dad thought weasel, but that's something we've NEVER seen. Just want to know what to look out for if we decide to get new babies!! I don't want this to happen again. They are my babies and I'm heart broken. We never found the 4th one and I keep waiting for her to come home, even left the coop door open for her just in case!

 

[soydo]

Yes and no. I had a large breed pup that was not learning to leave chickens alone very well for his first couple years. He would seem to behave well with them for months or weeks and then suddenly one morning or come home after a weekend to a bunch of dead chickens. Some of the time the chickens would be just killed, Sometimes some would be just killed, some would be missing some parts- a head, a wing, legs in random combinations. A very few did get partially eaten like whole legs and tail down to the body cavity. However, every single time he went on a spree it looked like there was a pillow fight in the yard. It was the same with various dogs while growing up, it was usually multiple birds, often nearly all of the flock with lots of feathers all over.

By the way wise decision- no dogs were caught in the action. Not a good idea yet to make accusations with your set up being pretty open. It could be the closest ones.. or the ones farther away, dogs do like to roam pretty far.

Perhaps a set up using electric wire like for cattle or horses adjusted to keeping dogs out would be more affordable to fence off a large lot?

 

[roosterhavoc]

If your neighbors dogs have never killed your birds before I doubt they did it all of a sudden. Sounds like a fox to me. Fox will bite off the head off a chicken like a raccoon sometimes. When a fox comes in and the chickens go nuts so do they. The fox is after one particular bird and then another one runs by so he grabs that one. They'll do this until they are all dead.

 

[Pecanny]

... We are considering purchasing more babies and letting them grow up with her (she is 4 years old now). What do you think?

I think you need one of these critter proof Fort Chicken models>



Hog pen fencing will never fail you>



The tell tale> Have a critter proof enclosure and keep your Chickens penned when you ain't around. Those are the golden rules if you want to keep your Chickens around for years to come. I have a friend that had a buff orpington hen that lived 16 years and laid year round for 15 of those years. He said she got to where she couldn't hardly see from having cataracts.

 

[Murs]

We've been out of town for a few days and let our chickens free range during the day and had someone close them up at night.  Yesterday a few hours before we returned home we found out from my mom who was watching our dog, that all the chickens had been killed.  Must have occurred sometime between 12pm-3pm. 

So sorry to hear about your chickens. It really sucks. I remember the first time I found remnants. Very disheartening.

Just wondering, are you sure they got locked up that night? Maybe someone forgot or the latch wasn't fully secured? How do you know it happened between 12-3pm?

 

[SN225]

Thank everyone! I typically would keep them in the coop while we are away, however lately we have had problems with them attacking each other, so I just wanted them to be able to get a break from each other if needed and get away! Not sure why they weren't getting along but I just didn't want to chance them pecking each other to death! We also had people at our house taking care of our dog 4-5 times a day (which is how I know what time it occurred). My husband just informed me that he did see a fox near our property about a week or two ago, so I'm guessing that was probably it.