About dogs, and predators generally: Some individual chickens will fly up into trees when scared, and are easy for raptors to get, or for climbing critters like raccoons. Other chickens freeze under shrubs on the ground, and are easy prey for ground predators.
Our worst episodes involved a sick fox who got ten free ranging hens one afternoon, and he seems to have selected birds who were producing eggs, not males or barren hens.
When our dog fence failed one day, one of our rescue dogs got out and killed over twenty birds in about an hour, boom, boom, boom, fast and efficient. She came from a fighting dog situation, lots of practice killing critters...
Raptors will take one bird at a time, never good, but a lot fewer deaths at once.
I'm glad you haven't had bad experience with predators and hope it continues...
Mary
Our worst episodes involved a sick fox who got ten free ranging hens one afternoon, and he seems to have selected birds who were producing eggs, not males or barren hens.
When our dog fence failed one day, one of our rescue dogs got out and killed over twenty birds in about an hour, boom, boom, boom, fast and efficient. She came from a fighting dog situation, lots of practice killing critters...
Raptors will take one bird at a time, never good, but a lot fewer deaths at once.
I'm glad you haven't had bad experience with predators and hope it continues...
Mary
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