Backyard chickens are awesome!

[crj]

You can set traps for the dogs. Call Animal control and see if they will lend you some cages. Once you catch them you can bring them to the pound or something. Good luck. Really sorry to hear about your birds.

 

[deerman]

Sound like it may not be a dog, most dogs will kill alot of chicken at one time. Sometime they don't eat any ,or carry them alway.

 

[cluckcluck42]

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Good ideas, thank you. Our run is not covered at the top, it was never meant to be predator proof just dog proof and to prevent them from running away. At night most of the birds are locked in a completely unpenetrable coop, and a few of the boys are in an outdoor chain link coop that should not be accesible to anything. I lock everything up before it gets dark. I am here almost every night so I am out there often seeing if everyone is gone to sleep yet to close the doors. I am surprised I have never ran into the dogs, but i know they are around because neighbours have seen them.

I am keeping everyone locked up from now on. They are going to hate it but oh well. Tomorrow we are going to start processing all our extra roos so everyone will be comfy in their respective coops, no fighting or overcrowding. We were looking into electric but no $$$ at the moment. Had to buy a vehicle. Maybe when we sell my car we can buy some.

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I'm glad I;m not the only one who thought that. The only thing that makes me think it is a dog is that these dogs would be starving. They are strays, so I think they are capable of grabbing and running since they were chased off with a shovel by my boyfriend last week. What predators typically take the birds away before killing them?? Foxes and raccoons tend to leave evidence behind, no? I think its the dogs because neighbours have seen them around, my bf chased them away last week after they mangled my poor hen and we have never had any predators til now, after the dog sightings happened. It couldbe something else, of course. Not sure what though.

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I hadn't even thought of that, I am going to call them tomorrow and see. Hopefully they have something for me. Thank you all. I am having a hard time with this, I still havent got over losing my Oprah and it just keeps going.

 

[deerman]

Ok you made a good point, you are dealing with a wild dog. Guess they would act more like a coyote or fox. Grab and run, they are hunting for food,not like stray here just playing with the chickens. Well not really stray most are just free roaming.


Hawks, coyote,,and fox carry their prey off, coons, possum, and skunk kill and eat near the kill area.

 

[desertdarlene]

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[cluckcluck42]

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