Dog killed 10 chickens

[SCMommaHen]

A neighbor's husky broke out and in under an hour killed 7 of his chickens and walked a mile to my house, broke through a weak spot in the fence where the staples had rusted and killed an Orloff, my only speckled sussex and my only Houdan, Cruella, my favorite. I am so sad. I absolutely loved that chicken.

RIP Cru

 

[SCMommaHen]

I'm so very sorry for your loss. Have you considered hot wire fencing as protection around your coop/pen?

Thanks. That's the thing. The coop is surrounded by electric netting that I turn on at night. I was so worried that something would get them at night. The cameras pick up raccoons and opossums nearly every night. During the day they range in the fenced backyard. It would be very difficult to hot wire that fence cause it ties into the neighbors fence. I am rethinking that. I did tell the dog's owner he needed to hotwire HIS fence!

 

[sourland]

I'm so very sorry for your loss. Have you considered hot wire fencing as protection around your coop/pen?

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Thanks. That's the thing. The coop is surrounded by electric netting that I turn on at night. I was so worried that something would get them at night. The cameras pick up raccoons and opossums nearly every night. During the day they range in the fenced backyard. It would be very difficult to hot wire that fence cause it ties into the neighbors fence. I am rethinking that. I did tell the dog's owner he needed to hotwire HIS fence!

You are correct. Neighbors responsibility to keep their dog on their property, not yours.

In many places, though perhaps no longer most places here in the US, a dog off leash and off property is considered "at large", and can be taken* if its attacking livestock.

*taken may mean be captured/caged by the local sheriff or animal control, but more often means killed by the livestock owner.

 

[Folly's place]

My experiences, with my own chicken killing dogs, is that the dog gets more efficient, faster, and more lethal with practice. Ours have been rescues with sad/ bad backstories, and not safe with the chickens. We have excellent fencing to keep the dogs and chickens separated, and the two fence failures we've had were miserable events.
Electric fencing is your friend!
And barnyard mix eggs as payment? No way! Sounds like AC needs to be involved...
Mary

 

[TundraFang]

Oh man, losing a chicken is hard but losing more than one must be heartbreaking. I'd check the laws in your area but where I live it's legal to shoot dogs if they attack your livestock. I'm not sure if you're willing to go that extreme but maybe consider a guard dog or keep the electric netting on all day.

 

[Folly's place]

I'm so very sorry for your losses! Motivated dogs can kill so many in such a short time, it's awful.
Your neighbor is liable for the cost of your birds, and go big! This should have already been offered by the dog owner, and I'd report the incident to Animal Control or whoever should be involved in your county, and if the neighbor isn't doing the right thing already, have this handled by AC or whoever.
It doesn't make up for the loss of those particular birds, but still should be paid.
And have that electric fence on all the time! It's more likely to cause injuries if it's sometime safe and sometimes not.
Mary

 

[McChooky]

Yes he offered some (possibly) fertile eggs of his barnyard mixes. No thanks. I'd rather he put the money into fortifying his fence. Not enough money out there to replace Cru. I'll hit him up next spring when I go get more Houdan eggs. I love this breed and want a large flock of them.

My advice is don't trust YOUR neighbor to fortify HIS fence to protect YOUR chickens from HIS dog. Successful kills strengthen a predators prey drive making it difficult to deter them.Even if he repaired the fence it would have to be stronger and better to stop his dog now. Some Huskies eat their prey whereas most other canines don't. This means you won't always find any evidence if they carry it off and eat it. Its more stressful if they're beloved pets.

 

[cmom]

So sorry for your loss. I agree with Mary. I would at least have the incident on record. The dog will probably be back at some point. I don't free range anymore because of losses from predators in the past but my land is mostly open pasture. When I stopped free ranging I made my pens larger. Now when I have let the birds out they may come out but very shortlythey are all back in their pens. Years ago I planted trees in all of the pens so they have shade which I don't have in the pasture. I also have electric wires around my coops and pens and noting has gotten past the hot wires. Cameras are your friend too. Good luck...

 

[addctd2plnts]

Huskies are known for being absolutely INSANE chicken killers that will travel 10 miles to kill again. If that person doesn't truly create Ft. Knox, that dog will kill again. Your only hope is to fence them in with electric netting. I highly recommend Premier 1 Fencing. I did get the higher than chicken size fencing because we also wanted to fence deer out. IMHO I don't think the chicken fencing is high enough to keep out a motivated coyote or dog that can jump.

I'm in dog rescue, so I'll never say to shoot it. It's the owners fault. I can't be too angry because a neighbor of mine had chickens and I didn't know it when we moved in. 2 of ours were out playing wih me and saw a squirrel and ran to chase it. I wasn't frantic because I knew they'd come back. But I had no idea next to me was a lady with chickens. I felt so bad when they killed one! It was MY FAULT, and I would have acted totally differently if I wasn't from the burbs and never considered chickens. We did put in dog fencing, then underground fencing to contain them.

My Father in Law had a story that always cracked me up. He had some neighbor dogs that used to come chase the squirrels near his porch. He took to shooting at them with an old pump up BB gun. If you are old enough, you remember they have a distinctive sound of the air and a pop as they fire. The dogs quickly learned that that sound meant getting shot in the butt. Well, he got too lazy to always go after them and one day imitated the sound of the BB gun and they still jumped up and ran away! So after that he'd just sit there and make the sound every time they came in the yard LMBO He could tell the story, complete with the BB gun sound and we'd die laughing.....