Chicken killed last night

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dzbink

dzbink

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Hey guys. I need your opinions. I'm new to the threads but need your opinions and advice. Last night there was a dead chicken in our pen. It was degutted and missing a leg. Our two Great Pyrenees were in the pen when we got home. They have been in the pen before and never hurt our chickens. I'm trying to figure out what happened last night. Did they kill the chicken or did a critter kill it and they jumped in the pen to protect the chickens. I've tried to research this cause I don't know now if my other chickens are safe from being killed from them today or if my dogs were trying to protect the chickens from other animals. What do you think? Should I trust my dogs to be around the other chickens or not. I'm going to try and fix the pen so they can't get in again. Please leave your thoughts,
 
Farming is a mysetery. How old are the dogs? How often are they with the birds? I woukd think that if the dogs were the killers they would have eaten most of the birds and defeather. Any blood or proof on the dogs? Did they eat their dinner the next day?
 
Hello and Welcome to BYC! I agree with @ChickenCanoe , the missing leg and gutted chicken usually points to a smaller predator. Are there any large bite marks? Does the bird appear to have been mauled to death?
 
mymilliefleur said:
Hello and Welcome to BYC! I agree with @ChickenCanoe, the missing leg and gutted chicken usually points to a smaller predator. Are there any large bite marks? Does the bird appear to have been mauled to death?
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That's another good point. Pyrenees are slobbery lol are the feathers tattered or matted with drool like they were played with or mouthed? I have had Pyrs for a very long time and on the rare occasion a pup got ahold of a bird it was mostly a few plucked out feathers, maybe some torn flesh and a lot of wet matted drooly feathers....
 
Hello :frow and Welcome To BYC! Sorry for your loss. X4, that sounds more like a smaller predator, a dog will also usually not stop at one bird.
 
It's probably too late now but, there might have been a trail of feathers , etc. leading out of the pen or possibly an owl swooped down and killed your bird. The noise would have driven your dogs to check it out. If you didn't find blood around their face or mouth, I would think they came afterwards. Though they could have gotten some blood, if they sniffed around the remains.

This is a perfect reason to have a game cam set up, so you see what predators are around. Don't your birds go in the coop at dusk? I'm assuming they were outside. Sorry about your loss, and hope you can prevent more.
 
Thanks for your reply. I looked for prints that night. No blood on any of the dogs mouth, teeth, chest, paws, There is a net over the cage so I don't think it was an owl. But there was an opening at one side where the net had ripped. I'm just baffled. The next day I went out and repaired the big gaping hole. The dogs accidentally got in the cage as I was working and they did nothing. They didn't show any aggression or chase them or act like they even wanted a snack so I'm still confused. One dog did lick his lips but who know what that meant. The missing leg was listed on backyard chickens as probably a raccoon. I guess I will never know. I believe it was snatched out of the coop tho cause a piece of bedding had a drop of blood on it. I close the door each night to the coop but we had gone out for a birthday dinner. So I hope my repair was good enough. Thanks again.
 

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