New developments! I think our youngest pup has been falsely accused, slightly. Let me add some details. Our 9 month old pup is Anatolian/Caucasian mix. I have caught her before mauling the chicks to death, almost like playing with them but I've never seen her eat them. There is a chance I always caught her before she had the chance. I took her away from the chickens a while back. The 6 month old pup is Pyrenees/Anatolian. The only time I have seen him with a chick was when a small 4 week old chick had gotten out of my brooding area and he had played with him, the chick was all wet but lived. Then, last week we caught him eating a chicken about 9-10 weeks old. We didn't see him kill the chicken and have never seen him look at them like he wanted to go after them. Then, after that we kept finding a dead young chicken in the coop each day. Our chickens free range in a pretty secure fenced area. They are in the same area as our sheep and the youngest pup at night. I couldn't lose anymore chicks so I took the dog out of the fence last night. I was worried he may run off because he is young, but he did great and stayed right by the fence guarding. HOWEVER, I still found a dead chick in the coop this morning!!!! SO, there is something else. While I did see him still eat a chicken, I'm not certain now that he was the one who killed it. I'm thinking maybe he found it. We've had the coop open so the chickens could get out every morning with a small door in the coop. We've never had issues until now. For now, we are going to close the coop up each night and let them out in the morning so we don't lose anymore. I am wondering if it could be one of our cats because some of the chicken is eaten but not all of it, and left in the coop. Or if it could be one of the many feral cats that lives at the neighbors but come onto our property often. Anyone seen issues with cats before?
