My (beloved) dog ate a second chicken yesterday.......

[crtrlovr]

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Chickens have no sense of territory / boundaries, and I have yet to meet or hear of a person who has been successful in teaching this concept to their chickens.

I have to agree with rancherhicks on this one: if you have taken on the responsibility of animals, this includes responsbility for their safety. "oh well. a dog will be a dog" (IMO) is not an acceptable justification for letting a dog have the liberty and opportunity to maul and kill your chickens. It's certainly not fair to the chickens, and it's really not fair to the dog, either. The dog needs to be trained. What do you think would happen if the dog would do that to someone else's chickens (or cat, or other small dog, etc.)? The dog needs training. Period.

 

[PurpleChicken]

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10 chickens? 10 chickens? Wow. You're gonna get some angry responses on that post. Does the dog eat them completely or just maul and torture them? To some people, obviously like you, chickens are just $2 birds low on the food chain. To others they are like people. I'm not judging you or anything, I'm just sorta scratching my head.

This is gonna get interesting or just locked.

 

[NeeleysAVLChicks]

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On behalf of whatever chickens you still may have, please, please get out of the chicken business. The fact that you've lost 10 chickens to your dog is absolutely ridiculous and boarders on animal abuse. It is YOUR responsibility to keep your chickens safe, they aren't going to "learn" to stay out of your dog's yard. UGGGGGGGG!!!!

 

[deerman]

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So what are you doing , getting chicken for dog's play toy ....then let it take days to died....what next kittens...

Sound like you DON'T need a DOG or chickens............

To get on a chicken forum and tell of your dog mauling your chicken and letting it die a slow death.........??????????????? its the 10 th ??????

 

[annaraven]

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I hope you have good asbestos underwear for the flaming you're likely to receive on that comment.

: Obviously your dog is more important to you than the chickens. Still, you might want to try to find a way to keep the chickens out of his back yard with fencing or something.

 

[savingdogs]

Bandit existed happily next to the chickens for over a year before the first one flew into her mouth....she decided she had a new favorite food and birdwatching hobby that very same day!
At this point I am not even attempting training, physical barriers seem to be the way to go, since I have learned on here that wing clipping may not be enough. In the meantime, I shall supervise and improvise!
Montana Cluckers is obviously sad about the loss of 10 birds, just like me about losing two, and like me, chose to share it, so she is seeking a solution, lets help her find it.
I bet her chickens have it a lot better than the one I had for dinner last night (store-bought).
Just a thought. I know I'm a big girl but I don't know about Montana Cluckers.

Be a force for positive change.

 

[Montana cluckers]

To all of you who have chosen to blast me for my dog and tell me that I don't need to raise chickens:

I was sharing my sadness over the loss of my chickens. I did not intentionally allow the chicken to suffer - I am new to raising chickens and I tried to make her comfortable, I wasn't sure how hurt she was and didn't want to kill her if she was just traumatized. What should I have done? Yes, my dog is one of the family, but so are the chickens. I guess I was just asking for support or suggestions (such as, how to clip their wings?), not being blasted for "bordering on animal abuse". If you knew me, you would know that I am broken-hearted over this and now I am hurt over the insensitive people out there that would rather blame and accuse a person, rather than offering advise. Should I kill the dog? I don't think so! I was enjoying being on BYC, but if this is the comments that people will make, maybe I won't bother anymore.

btw, my first post was very crass and for that I apologize. It came out all wrong and I didn't mean to make light of the whole tragedy. I'm sorry about that.

 

[annaraven]

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I can certainly understand how you feel. I'd be totally freaked.

I am new to chickens as well so I don't have any solutions to offer. As for clipping their wings, that's something I was able to do - I got a big kitchen shears and just followed the directions in my _Dummies_ book. Clipped one side and it seemed to help. But now they're in their run, which is covered 360degrees, so nothing's getting in, and they can't get out.

Are your chickens kept in a pen or free range? Is there a fence around the dog's backyard that they're hopping or something? Clipping might help. I'm not sure what else could work... Good luck!

 

[savingdogs]

Montana Cluckers, I think you and I need to go to the store together, and find us some of that deer stuff they are talking about, and cover our runs.
How does your dog get to them? One of my fosters was trying to dig into the run also, we fixed that by pounding zillions of stakes into the ground that no dog can get through and we put other things against the fence to keep small terrier types from viewing the birds very well.
I've also heard people on here use an "apron" around the coop area, you might look on here under coop construction and predators, we used the stakes because we had access to lots of them for free.
Clipping wings is very easy, it just takes two people. I had never done it before either and we did excellent our first time. The hardest part for me was catching the chicken! Not everyone in my flock is friendly and the flyers are not friendly ones.

I'm sorry the thread I started has worked out this way.....please stick around for the solution. This thread will probably be closed now anyway. I for one would be happy to share with you any information I've been able to learn to help keep your dog and chickens both safe.

 

[deerman]

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You are not talking about one or two chickens..........10 ??????

Should I kill the dog.......sure if it was killing someone's chicken it would be. Seen to many birds mauled by dogs that roam around here.

Not all dogs kill chicken, train train ,and train. Like the Mother whos son threw the rock thru the window....BOYS WILL BE BOYS.