Looking for some reassurance. My flock has been destroyed!

[Baxter-Shamo]

Hi,
First off sorry for your loss, Mistakes happen and its mostly the dogs fault.
Secondly yes, I've had an extremely similar experience, Someone let ferrets out where I was keeping my chickens and I lost them all. I went over the next morning and it was a slaughter house, Everything was dead, and in tact apart from the heads. If not in a un-recoverable position. I did try give the chickens that survived a fighting chance at life but it just wasn't happening resulting in me having to kill them to prevent suffering and I hate killing chickens especially. I lost some extremely caring, lovely, good looking & rare chickens and ended up giving up poultry keeping for about a year out of guilt and only just started up again.

The best thing you can do is getting some more birds, If needed and try forgetting what has happened.
Good luck, and again sorry for your loss.

 

[Mattemma]

So sorry for your loss as well as having to deal with neighbors even though for the most part they are being decent. I guess I would rather deal with wild animals than the complex issues created by humans and their pets.

I would prepare for the worse with neighbor dogs(doing this again),but hope for the best.People talk a good talk,but after a few days the dogs get to roaming again.

Again so sorry for your loss and having to dispatch some of the injured.How very sad.How weird that you had the dream.Glad your dog did not partake!

Hugs and best wishes with the fertile eggs.What type/size bator will you be using? Going to hatch a lot?

 

[yo burrill]

I free range all my adult birds as long as they stay out of my neighbors flower beds. They earn their keep by eating bugs in the summer. I have lost about every standard size bird I had. I now have barnyard banties. I have had better luck keeping them. I still lost 8 in one night earlier this summer. Rainy night and I think they roosted under the porch instead of in the tree like they usually did. I never could get them to stay in the coop. I found feathers to one of my roo's and found the body of one hen. The rest were just gone. I have 14 more babies and a broody hen setting on 10 eggs due to hatch Wednesday so I will still end up with more birds than I want to winter. I feel for your family. It is always a hard thing to go through. I commend you for trying to work with your neighbors but I agree enough is enough. They have been warned.

 

[LaynaDon95]

Hi,
First off sorry for your loss, Mistakes happen and its mostly the dogs fault.
Secondly yes, I've had an extremely similar experience, Someone let ferrets out where I was keeping my chickens and I lost them all. I went over the next morning and it was a slaughter house, Everything was dead, and in tact apart from the heads. If not in a un-recoverable position. I did try give the chickens that survived a fighting chance at life but it just wasn't happening resulting in me having to kill them to prevent suffering and I hate killing chickens especially. I lost some extremely caring, lovely, good looking & rare chickens and ended up giving up poultry keeping for about a year out of guilt and only just started up again.

The best thing you can do is getting some more birds, If needed and try forgetting what has happened.
Good luck, and again sorry for your loss.

Oh my goodness! Ferrets will kill chickens like that? I'm so sorry. That sounds way worse than what happened to me. We had to kill 4 that were just too badly ripped up. It was very sad. I had to hold one of my favorite hens while she was killed. She was so beautiful and I so looking forward to having her in my flock. (She hadn't started laying yet.) I'm glad you have chickens again. They really are a joy if you can get passed the heartbreaking times like this. My poor flock was too terrified to get off the roost this morning. I went to let them out and they usually are all standing at the door, shoving each other out of the way trying to push through the door. Today, what was left my poor meager flock was on the roost and just stared at me like "No way! We aren't going out again!" They are all out now, but they sat there for a good while before they would leave the coop.

So sorry for your loss as well as having to deal with neighbors even though for the most part they are being decent. I guess I would rather deal with wild animals than the complex issues created by humans and their pets.

I would prepare for the worse with neighbor dogs(doing this again),but hope for the best.People talk a good talk,but after a few days the dogs get to roaming again.

Again so sorry for your loss and having to dispatch some of the injured.How very sad.How weird that you had the dream.Glad your dog did not partake!

Hugs and best wishes with the fertile eggs.What type/size bator will you be using? Going to hatch a lot?

I have never lost any of my animals to wild animals. (Which has really surprised me because we have coyotes, foxes, hawks, snakes, etc. but I think I would rather have to deal with the neighbors because at least this way we get some kind of compensation for it all. I fully expect the dogs to be back. I would be much more surprised if they actually kept their dogs locked up than if they return. They may even get a few birds (though I really, really hope not.) But this time they will have been warned and their dogs will be dead. I would rather not have to shoot someones pet. I know if Maggie did this and they shot her I would be crushed. But I could not fault them. One of the neighbors flat out told us "If my dog comes back I fully expect you to kill her, and of course that would make us sad, but we would totally understand it." They are the ones who are rehoming their dog.
I'm using a LG still air. I've had 2 friends offer me their incubators as well (same kind) so I'll probably use tham as 2 incubators and a hatcher. I'm going to hatch quite a few, yes. I'm trying to sell chickens as well (and I was so, so close to having an Amaraucana trio! I have 1 Amaraucana hen and 2 roosters left. Not quite the same... The hen is injured, but if she lives I'll still be hatching her eggs. I guess it could be worse) I'll probably hatch enough to sell, though they wouldn't be pure bred. I think mutts are the most exciting because you never know how they will turn out. I had 2 little black chicks turn into a beautiful golden hens with little black dots down their necks and black tails. ! was killed yesterday, but I still have her little sister.
Actually, the day before yesterday we had locked a lot of the chickens in the garden to do some clean up for the fall garden, and all but my biggest, best rooster and the little gold/black sister escaped. I forgot to let them out of the garden so they spent the night in it, and were safe from the dogs the next morning. I was so worried because I couldn't find my rooster anywhere! All I had left were my annoying younger ones. Then I looked over and saw him and the hen in the garden and was so happy!

 

[emptynesterMom]

One of the things that has worked well for me was to add a hot wire just above the ground and another at the top. I saw my neighbors dog put her nose on the lower wire once. Lol, she has never been back. If my neighbor and I walk over to the coop, she lies down in the field and waits until we come back.

 

[centrarchid]

The other varmints will stop by eventually. I have gone a year to or two with no losses then get hit pretty hard for a year to two. Raccoons and red fox will likely be your most consistent long-term headache.

 

[ManuelsChickens]

Sorry For Your Loss.
I Don't Know Nothing about This Cause This Has Never Happend To Me But I Have Had Problems With Hawks. But Nothing That Bad And I Hope I Don't Ever Experience Something Like That.


But Best Of Luck Hope You Can Restore Your Flock With Beautiful Chickens.

 

[FarmersHatchery]

I've had a raccoon reduce my flock of 35 to 12 before. Walked out there and all there was was a bunch of feathers headless bodies everywhere. The 12 birds that lived weren't roosting in the chicken coop, that's the only reason they survived. It was quite tragic...I've had plenty of other predator problems before, but that was defiantly the worst. I know how you are feeling right now, especially when you have to put a bird out of its misery. It is really depressing I know, but don't give up on raising your birds just because of an accident, no matter how big or small.

I will say this though, you should always lock your birds up at night, no matter if you've had predator problems or not. The night the raccoon killed so many of my birds is the one night I forgot to close my coop after doing so for over a year. I hadn't had any problems with predators before then. Also, on killer dogs or coyotes, they will come to your coop during the day too, so you might want to invest in building a secure free range area for them if you haven't already. Hope all your remaining birds are recovery fine.

 

[LaynaDon95]

The other varmints will stop by eventually. I have gone a year to or two with no losses then get hit pretty hard for a year to two. Raccoons and red fox will likely be your most consistent long-term headache.

We will be building up more defenses around the coop. I can't do it alone, though and my family rarely has time to help me. I know that losses due to predators are going to continue to happen, but I much preferred when I was able to say I hadn't lost any to predators. We will learn from experience the things we need to do the secure our flock's safety. Hopefully never an experience like this though.

I've had a raccoon reduce my flock of 35 to 12 before. Walked out there and all there was was a bunch of feathers headless bodies everywhere. The 12 birds that lived weren't roosting in the chicken coop, that's the only reason they survived. It was quite tragic...I've had plenty of other predator problems before, but that was defiantly the worst. I know how you are feeling right now, especially when you have to put a bird out of its misery. It is really depressing I know, but don't give up on raising your birds just because of an accident, no matter how big or small.

I will say this though, you should always lock your birds up at night, no matter if you've had predator problems or not. The night the raccoon killed so many of my birds is the one night I forgot to close my coop after doing so for over a year. I hadn't had any problems with predators before then. Also, on killer dogs or coyotes, they will come to your coop during the day too, so you might want to invest in building a secure free range area for them if you haven't already. Hope all your remaining birds are recovery fine.

I will be locking my coop at night, every night. I will also make sure all the gates on the property stay closed especially at night. We will probably end up building a run at some some point, but I don't think we need it yet. The dogs never come during the day (though now that they know we have chicken toys they probably will as soon as they are turned loose again.) We will be locking the gates before leaving the house and such as well.

 

[LaynaDon95]

So while I was driving down the road, on the way to get Blu-Kote for my injured hens, I passed one of the family's houses who owns a couple of the "guilty" dogs. I saw them out in the backyard, building something, so I slowed down to look. They have already almost completed a dog pen, with a big doghouse and a high fence. Their dogs are chained up in the meantime. Maybe they actually will try to keep this from happening again... 0.o