My dog ate my chicken

[mya_975]

Hello, I have 11 chickens that are about 7/8 weeks weeks old and I also have a golden retriever dog. When we first got the chicks at first I only had one I hatched and I had her around them all the time since I was home all day and she was too. She would always be around the brooder and shower no signs of aggression and they even got comfortable around her. When they got feathered I started taking them outside for trips and I would take the dog with me . She did start chasing them a bit since she always has a bunch of energy but she never showed aggression so I thought she would be fine. Today I took them outside I’m a fenced in area to run around a bit and get some grit and took the dog with me like I usually do and then I realized i needed to go to the store to get some more bedding, food, ect. And since it’s such a hassle to bring them out and in I left without putting them inside after asking my dad, he said “they’ll be fine and if a hawk comes to get them the dog will scare them off) so we left for about 20 minutes and came back to three chickens sprawled out on the ground. One of them were fine and got right back up without any issues but I think he may have been trampled and the other one has a small sore on her wing and seems like she’s in shock because she only lays other then to get food and water. The last one didn’t make it. I never would of thought my dog would do something like this since she’s literally scared of the wind and she seemed scared of the chickens to be completely honest. I thought her being around them so much would be enough and especially since she’s definitely not a starving dog she’s very spoiled and gets all types of treats and meats every day. I literally bake her a whole big chicken every week. Anyways what I’m getting at is. Is there something I did wrong? Should I be training her more? Is there a certain way I should I train her? I’m devastated because I do so much to take care of every single one of my chickens and I treat them all like they’re my babies. Please help.

 

[Eggcessive]

Don’t blame your dog. She is a bird dog, just like my golden retriever Opie, who over a couple of weeks time, played with a few of my chickens when they jumped up and over their 4 foot chain link fence into our yard. They had a huge field to free range in. Two chickens lived and were fine, but the one who had no marks on her, died. We had bought a shock collar earlier, so we put it on him and left the body out in the yard. I hated to shock him, but 2 shocks, and he never looked at another chicken ever. We later had a few yard chickens, and he lived happily with them ignoring them, and teaching our other dogs to leave them alone. I am sorry for your loss.

 

[Chickenlover2009]

I'm so sorry!
I love my Black Lab Willa, but she has killed like 20 of my chickens in her 2.5 years of being with me (mostly because my chickens are dumb enough to fly out of their 6 foot fenced yard)
Don't be too mad at your dog, she is just a bird dog like mine, but I know that doesn't make it hurt less
But seriously, i know how it feels to lose your birds to your dog, and i am very sorry you had to go through this.

 

[mya_975]

I'm so sorry!
I love my Black Lab Willa, but she has killed like 20 of my chickens in her 2.5 years of being with me (mostly because my chickens are dumb enough to fly out of their 6 foot fenced yard)
Don't be too mad at your dog, she is just a bird dog like mine, but I know that doesn't make it hurt less
But seriously, i know how it feels to lose your birds to your dog, and i am very sorry you had to go through this.

Thank you so much! This is my first flock and I lived in the city before this (with the dog as well) so all of this is new and I was absolutely destroyed when I found the chicken on the ground. I guess I’ll have to grow some tougher skin since things like this happens a lot with livestock. My neighbor lost like 10 chickens to animals a few weeks ago.

 

[theoldchick]

How sad. So sorry. Don't trust your dog with chickens. I know I can't trust my dogs as they have a strong prey drive.