Yeah. So, this past Wednesday was a day from Hades for me. First, I awoke to my daughter yelling "chickens are out!!" and I found that my bantam coop door had been left open and so the chickens just thought their run had been extended, I guess. I do not free range my birds because of the sheer number of dogs in the area, so I can only assume my children or the neighbors' kids opened the door and left it. No problem yet, the birds were happily foraging. I couldn't get them "herded" back into the run, and being that I was going to be late for work, I elected to toss some dinner scraps into the run to entice them back in. It worked, I closed the door, and left content that all was well.
Fast forward some 6+ hours and I return home from work to find that my bantams are again loose, this time basking in the sunshine on the warm day. My rooster's face is one big black bleeding scab (I discovered he had been fighting with my standard cochin roo through the cochin's chain link enclosure--fun fun and another reason I can't let one rooster free range) and there was a large gaping hole in the bantam run fence.
While very grateful that no chicken was hurt by a predator, it didn't take long to figure out that the predator was probably one of my neighbor's dogs who run loose but are uninterested in my chickens. They wanted the scraps! The dogs have never seemed to care about the birds, as evidenced by the chickens lack of fear when the dogs come around, and even when the chickens were loose on two occasions that day the dogs could care less. But the dogs DO care about scraps. I opened the run door that afternoon and the chickens eagerly returned to their coop--enough excitement! Also they hadn't found a water source on their adventure so they grouped around the waterer. I repaired and reinforced the run and the main dog in question sat by me "apologizing" by whining and rolling over. He was just hungry for leftovers and I couldn't get too angry. It was my fault for not having my coop and run more secure. Strange as it sounds though, it made me feel better about the 2 dogs that perpetrated this. It would have been VERY easy for them to kill my chickens and they didn't. Also, the main dog in question can't "lie". When he does something bad (gets into the trash, steals another dog's food, etc) he is SO ashamed. You can call him by name and he will literally drop where he's at, give high pitched whiny cries and show his belly. He will also squint his eyes dramatically and crawl to you, LOL.
Just think about your coop and run security when you "treat" your chickens!
Fast forward some 6+ hours and I return home from work to find that my bantams are again loose, this time basking in the sunshine on the warm day. My rooster's face is one big black bleeding scab (I discovered he had been fighting with my standard cochin roo through the cochin's chain link enclosure--fun fun and another reason I can't let one rooster free range) and there was a large gaping hole in the bantam run fence.
While very grateful that no chicken was hurt by a predator, it didn't take long to figure out that the predator was probably one of my neighbor's dogs who run loose but are uninterested in my chickens. They wanted the scraps! The dogs have never seemed to care about the birds, as evidenced by the chickens lack of fear when the dogs come around, and even when the chickens were loose on two occasions that day the dogs could care less. But the dogs DO care about scraps. I opened the run door that afternoon and the chickens eagerly returned to their coop--enough excitement! Also they hadn't found a water source on their adventure so they grouped around the waterer. I repaired and reinforced the run and the main dog in question sat by me "apologizing" by whining and rolling over. He was just hungry for leftovers and I couldn't get too angry. It was my fault for not having my coop and run more secure. Strange as it sounds though, it made me feel better about the 2 dogs that perpetrated this. It would have been VERY easy for them to kill my chickens and they didn't. Also, the main dog in question can't "lie". When he does something bad (gets into the trash, steals another dog's food, etc) he is SO ashamed. You can call him by name and he will literally drop where he's at, give high pitched whiny cries and show his belly. He will also squint his eyes dramatically and crawl to you, LOL.
Just think about your coop and run security when you "treat" your chickens!