Okay First post on BYC so here goes....
Late January my Wife gave in a let me get a few birds, that SOON turned into 5 barred rocks 2 black sex links 4 (what i believ to be bantam salmon faverolles? got em from somone who CLAIMED they were Russian Orloffs- NOT EVEN CLOSE in my opinion. Anway- the BR and BSL's are now approximatly 19 wks old. Every night when i get home i let all of them out to free range for a couple of hours before i lock them up in their "coon proof" coop.
Tonight i let them out and went in to eat dinner, 20 minutes later the neighbor came and got me and said that she thought a dog had gotten one of the birds. the neighbors are super sweet about my small flock and look after them as if they were their own, seems that a year ago ( i just moved in in November) they had a small flock that one by one diapeared due to a black lab about a 1/4 of a mile down the road. did a head count and sure enough mercedes was missing. the neighbors helped me look in most places until she mentioned that we should go and see if "that dog" was out of his pen again. sure enough he was, and he had picked poor mercedes virtually "clean".
I took pictures of this dog dinning on my chicken, then confronted the owner who appologized profusley. He offered to pay for the bird, get me another, whatever. i maintained my composure (which was REALLY hard to do) and i let him know that if it happened again of if i saw the dog in my yard, then Fido WONT be coming home that night.
My question is, can i LEGALLY do that? (eradicate the dog) i know that there used to be a law in texas that you could protect your "stock" and i am unsure if i will get in trouble for even making that promise. dont get the wrong idea, i LOVE dogs as well, have one that is GREAT with the birds, but those birds were just eating bugs in the yard...mercedes didnt deserve to die
Open to any ideas that some of you may have, i am new to log on and Post, but have been following BYC for months now and would like some of you guys expertise in this area if possible.
Thanks.
Late January my Wife gave in a let me get a few birds, that SOON turned into 5 barred rocks 2 black sex links 4 (what i believ to be bantam salmon faverolles? got em from somone who CLAIMED they were Russian Orloffs- NOT EVEN CLOSE in my opinion. Anway- the BR and BSL's are now approximatly 19 wks old. Every night when i get home i let all of them out to free range for a couple of hours before i lock them up in their "coon proof" coop.
Tonight i let them out and went in to eat dinner, 20 minutes later the neighbor came and got me and said that she thought a dog had gotten one of the birds. the neighbors are super sweet about my small flock and look after them as if they were their own, seems that a year ago ( i just moved in in November) they had a small flock that one by one diapeared due to a black lab about a 1/4 of a mile down the road. did a head count and sure enough mercedes was missing. the neighbors helped me look in most places until she mentioned that we should go and see if "that dog" was out of his pen again. sure enough he was, and he had picked poor mercedes virtually "clean".
I took pictures of this dog dinning on my chicken, then confronted the owner who appologized profusley. He offered to pay for the bird, get me another, whatever. i maintained my composure (which was REALLY hard to do) and i let him know that if it happened again of if i saw the dog in my yard, then Fido WONT be coming home that night.
My question is, can i LEGALLY do that? (eradicate the dog) i know that there used to be a law in texas that you could protect your "stock" and i am unsure if i will get in trouble for even making that promise. dont get the wrong idea, i LOVE dogs as well, have one that is GREAT with the birds, but those birds were just eating bugs in the yard...mercedes didnt deserve to die
Open to any ideas that some of you may have, i am new to log on and Post, but have been following BYC for months now and would like some of you guys expertise in this area if possible.
Thanks.
