I Lost my girls today :*(

[Sylviaanne]

Been there, done that. I couldn't blame the dog but he was my son's dog. After it happened the 2nd time he was going to take the dog out and shoot him. I couldn't be angry that the dog did what dogs do but the reason the dog kept getting out was that my son's sons, my grandsons, wouldn't check to see if the gate was locked before they let the dog out. My son replaced the birds the dog got but that didn't really make it better. I did talk him out of killing the dog, it wasn't all the dog's fault, it is what dogs do.

Yeah, they had to be so scared and it doesn't help that you had to love them. Get some more babies and watch them have fun. It helps. Crazy antics of baby chicks.

Stacieish: Yes, if the chicks are small enough cats will kill them. I don't put any chicks out that I think the cats around here would bother. When we moved here cats moved down from the neighbors. My daughters fed them on the sly so they stayed. One of my daughters, I'm sure, put the word out at school that she wanted more cats and we had 3 litters dropped off in front of our house. Where we live, right off the highway, no one would drop them off. Too close to the freeway.

Novastar, I feel your pain and I'm so, so, so sorry for your loss. Sylvia

 

[mumofsix]

Sorry for Your lose.If the Dog doesn't belong to You TRY to Talk to it's owner.about ways to keep this from happening again.And as stated hardware cloth works wanders it's on all My cages and on the bottom of My run.

 

[Folly's place]

So sorry for your loss. Much better fencing is most important. If your dogs could get into the pen, so can other predators. Redo your chicken coop and run, fence your dogs better, and start over. You might be able to retrain your dogs, or not. Non of this was intentional; we've all learned the hard way, what works and what doesn't. I remember the disasters here, they've made me a better chicken keeper. My current dogs think that chicken is really tasty, so security is a big issue here. Mary

 

[Traphill]

That is awful I am so sorry....My favorite dog got out and it was my fault and killed 2 of my chickens, I felt so bad and the conflicting feelings were awful! don't feel that its your fault but a learning moment as it was for me too,.. take care and get more chickens you know the challenges now

 

[Tangy2134]

So sorry :'(

 

[Jayknee]

So sorry for your loss

sadly I know how your feeling having also lost my first set of girls this year in a fire! It stinks big time.

From what I can see of your coop/run you were using the recommended hardware cloth. I would suggest that when you rebuild I would replace the damaged section of fence with new hardware cloth and reinforce the entire coop/run area with some other kind of fencing [cattle panel, no climb, etc..] as well as a nice hot wire if possible! Theirs no way that the dogs will go near the coop again once they get bit by a nice hot hotwire.

I am currently using cattle panels for the main structure of my run with chicken wire wired to the panels to keep my birds in and the local dogs out! I have plans for placing a hotwire around the bottom to farther protect my girls!

 

[BAKAR]

I love the chicken that Tangy has in the avatar, that's awesome! Is it a polish or Poland breed?

 

[BAKAR]

And I know that I was off topic, sorry....

Sorry for your loss... One of my Americana's was trampled just a few days ago by the rest of my flock

 

[novastar]

Is it too late to start over? I just don't know if I could bare it at the moment. Just want my girls back...

 

[Sylviaanne]

Wish we could wave a magic wand for you. Sylvia