B.Y.C. Dorking Club!

[3riverschick]

Hi,
An open invitation to bring pics of your Dorkings to the BYC Large Fowl SOP thread.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/732985/csu-chicken-state-university-large-fowl-sop/1200
We have just started studying the Dorking breed. The birds an be of any quality.
Will be discussed by veteran breeders and judges.
Thanks so much,
Karen

 

[Alaskan]

Yes... but... you >>>>CAN<<<< fault other people for letting their dogs run loose to terrorize other people's pets and livestock at will, especially those that have been caught doing it previously.  Anyone who thinks their dog won't return to a farm where they had fun chasing and killing a chicken (or a cat or a sheep or a calf... etc) and do the same thing again is fooling themselves.  It's not the dog's fault (it's just instinct), it's the owners fault.  People need to take responsibility for the actions/outcomes of their dogs' behavior if they are allowed to go off their property unsupervised.  And while it might seem "silly" to shoot a dog over *a* chicken, you have to consider that rarely just one chicken is killed but more often it's several, sometimes an entire flock decimated, and what are the chances that the owner will handle the dog any differently in the future?  Consider the "going rate" here locally for a young laying hen or one about to lay, which is around $12-15 depending on the breed.  

I have rarely had a dog kill only one chicken.

And, even though I have never had super expensive chickens, and I guess the going rate for chickens might be the $12-$15 you quoted.....

But, a dog climbed over my fence, jumped through my netting, pushed its way through a small chicken pop door, and killed over thirty chickens. All of my chickens. In Late January.

I spent at the most, maybe $40 a month on feed, but I had eggs that I gave to various fixed income people...as well as the over a dozen eggs a day that my growing boys would eat.

And the little pet bantams that my kids adored.

Now....we eat so few eggs....they are over $4 for 18 (I think that is what it was).

I had to wait until April to buy more chicks (way too cold before that), and now I have a bunch of chicks, in breeds I didn't really want (because ordering chicks in late January for an early spring delivery means that most are sold out), that still aren't laying.

I might get some eggs this fall...but often, because of my MAJOR daylight changes, I often don't get any eggs from pullets until January. Interestingly, my hens do lay all through the fall, it is just the little pullers that have trouble adjusting.

So....one dog that was allowed to roam about as it willed....that visited my coop in the fall and killed three hens, that then returned in January to kill every single one of them, and I probably will have no eggs for an entire year, the low fixed income people will also have no eggs.

The amount of money I have lost is way greater than $12-$15 per hen. And where I am, I couldn't have bought replacement hens locally, would have had to ship them.

While I completely understand the need to spend multiple thousands of dollars in good fencing to protect a few $3 a chick chickens, it also makes me furious. My property wasn't free. I paid good money so that I would own this land. To have someone else's pets come onto my property, poop all over, and break into my coop to kill my chickens, makes me very angry.

I can slightly see free roaming chickens as an "attractive nuisance" that might entice a normally well behaved dog into trespassing and slaughter.

But, for a dog to rip apart fencing, bite at it and yank so that the wire welds pop apart, for a dog to repeatedly jump up against a coop door trying to get it to open, etc etc

People who think that their dog should have the right to roam free, as it wishes, wherever it pleases, and whenever it pleases....

Well, it is so understandable that dogs are a very inflammatory topic on a chicken site.

I could understand it better, and be happier about it, if I needed the super strong double layer fence, all roofed with strong wire or solid roof, and multiple strands of electric, if I needed that to keep out the bears..... But a domestic animal, that has an owner.....

Obviously I am ranting..... Sorry, I am just still so very very upset over the entire thing.

 

[kimberly35042]

That is so awful and one of my greatest fears. I free range my geese on a large pond in my front yard. It's probably 1 acre. If there is a problem, they could easily stay safe by getting on the water, but sometimes I wonder if they have that much sense...geez.

The dorkings are behind a board fence, but it really doesn't matter. One determined dog is all it takes.

Someone has a really great sig that says my dog on my property is a pet; your dog on my property is a predator.

 

[kimberly35042]

You guys with adult birds, PLEASE post on the CSU thread!!

 

[Sazbaby]

I have rarely had a dog kill only one chicken.

And, even though I have never had super expensive chickens, and I guess the going rate for chickens might be the $12-$15 you quoted.....

But, a dog climbed over my fence, jumped through my netting, pushed its way through a small chicken pop door, and killed over thirty chickens. All of my chickens. In Late January.

Ok, sorry I cut your quote short, just to save room, but YES...... EXACTLY. It completely sucks and is unfair. Yours is the prime example of why it is such a big problem and why many people resort to shooting the dog. So sorry for what you've had to go through and I know if I was in your shoes I'd be pulling my hair out with frustration. You're exactly right that the whole dog subject is very inflammatory, as people are usually dramatically either on one side or the other, usually no in between. I wish there was an easy answer. We own 20 acres and I would like to have the option to free range my chickens if I so desired, but there are way too many people here whose dogs just run willy nilly all over the place. Stepping out my back door right into a pile of fresh dog poop (at a time when we did not have a dog here) just made me furious. The day when a dog gets to any of our livestock will not be pretty.

I'm going to try to put this aside and get back to dorkings on this great forum!!!

 

[BGMatt]

Yeah, I'm done with this thread and probably this forum. It bothers me that there are people that would view a chicken, a piece of food, as the same value of life as a dog, someone's family member. Would you shoot someone's child on your property?

Hope some of y'all do well with your birds.

 

[ki4got]

Quote:
Originally Posted by BGMatt

Also keep in mind it is OUR duty to guard our birds, you can't fault other people for not training their dog to leave prey (chickens) alone when they don't own them (honestly, legal or not shooting a dog over a chicken is just silly), again it is YOUR respnsibility, and mine as flock owners to defend our flocks.
Yeah, I'm done with this thread and probably this forum. It bothers me that there are people that would view a chicken, a piece of food, as the same value of life as a dog, someone's family member. Would you shoot someone's child on your property?

Hope some of y'all do well with your birds.
re: part 1 of your comments, yes, I CAN fault people for not TRAINING their dogs, and even more so, I can fault them for letting the dogs roam unattended.

in my case, i'm surrounded by approximately 600 acres of wood and cow pasture. the dogs I mentioned previously were well over a mile from their home.

dogs that learn to kill livestock will usually graduate to bigger and better things when their supply of one runs out, IMO... we've had dogs (trained hunting dogs) go after local poultry and then graduate to lambs and calves... one person about 3/4 mile down the road from me lost roughly 40 turkeys and 6 goats last fall, within the course of 3 days. all her animals were fenced/penned properly for the breeds. the 2 dogs climbed the goat fence (with electric strands at top and bottom) and broke the door to the turkey pen (jumping at it, we suppose).

re: part 2, i'm sorry if you feel that a flock of chickens has less value than a destructive dog who's owner doesn't care enough to keep him at home. but it still boils down to the owner of the dog who's ultimately responsible for the destruction of livestock. while they may not train the dog to leave livestock alone, specifically, they should at least train the dog to stay home, or keep him penned or contained so he doesn't wander.

 

[sandiklaws]

Yeah, I'm done with this thread and probably this forum. It bothers me that there are people that would view a chicken, a piece of food, as the same value of life as a dog, someone's family member. Would you shoot someone's child on your property?

Hope some of y'all do well with your birds.

Um would you let a toddler run amuck unsupervised? As a professional dog trainer of over 25 years it makes me crazy when people refer to their dog as "family" yet allow them to get hurt or lost because of letting the roam free. A dog is not capable of retaining training without their person being there. Fido might "never hurt a fly" at home, yet be a terror to every living creature around when not guided by their pack of people. Dogs cannot make good decisions in a human world without guidance, letting them loose and assuming everything is fine when they show up at home later is just asking for trouble. Personally I would try something different first, but if the dog made a habit of coming back over and over, and I exhausted all other options, then yeah I would shoot it. I actually had a pair of rogue dogs rip apart my rabbits, pulling them out of a 2 inch hole and shredding them for sport. They both went home covered in pink paintball spots and never returned. Breeds were a Husky mix and a Dalmatian. Had they come back I would have taken it to the next level without hesitation. They destroyed a decades worth of work in a single killing spree, not to mention the terror my "family members" went through while being pulled alive through a 2 inch hole. Prior to this I had had zero issues with any predators, wild or domestic, despite having coy-wolves using my back yard for a byway, and regular battles with rummaging raccoons getting into our garbage. Our yard was fenced, but a gate was left open and they did this at 1 in the afternoon.

 

[ki4got]

Quote: in that 1 respect, i'm very fortunate... my only remaining dog, a standard poodle just over 3 years old, has such separation anxiety, he can wander my property freely, supervising the chickens and horses, breaking up squabbles when they occur, but has never gotten out of hearing range of the house... i work from home, and if i don't have a call come in for a few minutes, he runs in frantically looking for me, to make sure i haven't left. LOL i DO have a web-cam on the yard to monitor what's going on while i'm working, and he's usually just wandering around, looking for 'lost' eggs and socializing with the cats, or sitting at the head of the driveway looking down, waiting for someone to come up it... (my drive is over 1/2 mile long up the mountain, so visitors are few and far between.)

if it's so hot that i have to have the air on, he goes outside, does his thing and immediately asks to come back in, because he can't hear me. coincidentally, those are usually the days i have predator problems too...

 

[Sazbaby]

Yeah, I'm done with this thread and probably this forum. It bothers me that there are people that would view a chicken, a piece of food, as the same value of life as a dog, someone's family member. Would you shoot someone's child on your property?

Hope some of y'all do well with your birds.

The only people who would ever need to worry about their dog being shot for harassing/killing livestock are the ones who *don't* value their dog's life enough to keep it safe at home. The ones who *don't* see it as a family member. Absolutely ZERO of the dogs running around loose here are "family members" to the people who own them, they're just an animal who occasionally stops by to get a quick meal of el-cheap-o dog food. Probably only have a rabies vax and county tag/license because they've already been reported for not having it. These aren't the dogs that cuddle up by your feet when you watch a movie, snuggle with you in bed, go with you on vacation, or have their own Christmas stocking hung by the fireplace. These are matted, stinky, flea and tick infested, obnoxious barking, running amok dogs whose owners don't think enough of them to hardly let them in their house. To be completely fair, some of them are nice, decent dogs, but again, it's the owner who is at fault for not caring enough about them to provide a safe place for them to run and explore in a controlled environment. In your comparison to children, rather than being shot, their parents would probably be forced to take action by the local law enforcement officers and end up in juvenile detention if they were harassing/killing livestock. That's the difference here- there is no help offered by the legal system, so livestock owners are left to take matters into their own hands, with very few options for doing so effectively. I don't think anyone here is suggesting shooting a dog simply because it walks on their property. It's the behavior that would be considered quite heinous if it was a person doing it, being done by a dog, that is what brings the possibility of getting shot into the equation. Now. I said I wasn't going to get into it again and this time I won't. Please don't leave the forum just because you have a difference of opinion on a matter that is quite raw for a lot of people. The day that you come home to find a dog gnawing on the last of your flock, you might feel differently. Then again, maybe not, but that's your decision to make. From my short time here, you've offered information and opinions that are highly valued by the other dorking breeders here, and it would be unfortunate if you truly feel you need to leave the group over a difference of opinion. Hoping you will stay and promising again that I will not post any further on the matter.