No one has messed with my chickens until today

[dtchick]

Wow, I've read the words "theft, vandalism, trespassing, shotgun" etc. etc. What a lot of controversy. Kids make dumb choices because they're kids. I don't think you can jump to the assumption that he was up to no good. If you haven't had trouble with these neighbors before, why not give him the benefit of the doubt?

Speaking of assumptions, I have a pitbull mix and he is the sweetest dog in the world. My chickens mill around him like he's Santa Claus.

 

[mom'sfolly]

This kid is ten. I have 8 and 12 year old son's; and by that age kids know what the rules are. No kid should be in someone else's back yard without permission. And kids should know not to approach animals they do not know. For both her safety and the kid's, the OP was perfectly right for yelling the kid off her property. If this child had been injured, she would be the one paying for his injuries. This is particularly important because she has other animals.

At 10, the kid should have known better. She was justified in her actions.

If they were my kids, I'd also want to be told that they were in the backyard, messing with animals, without permission.

 

[klf73]

I do think some of these answers are extreme.....but, not knowing this child and his history......
I have a son that makes some BAD choices and he is 11. I could see him doing something like this, even though I always tell him stay off other peoples property, leave animals alone, etc. He is not malicious at all but makes bad choices ALL the time. He is a slow learner and makes the same mistake more than once (when he was little he put his finger in the door hinge part at the doctors while the door was closing, did the same thing a week later but I caught him so he didnt' get hurt the second time). How I would handle it and hope someone would handle MY son would be, yes, YELL at him. THEN come to me so I can talk to him and probably punish him. I have the neighborhood kids always trying to mess with my chickens and have had to speak to many of them, if they don't listen I go speak to their parents.
A shotgun is overkill IMO.
Hopefully you scared him enough but I would still drop in and talk to his parents, just tell them it is a safety issue and there is a reason the chickens are in a pen....
good luck

 

[cluckcluck42]

Talk with the parents. They need to know that its potentially very dangerous. I would not be happy to find anyones child or ANYONE in with my chickens.

 

[Biochick]

Kids need to be yelled at and scared sometimes just to get there attention, let his parents know about the problem. They can't
correct or punish him if they don't know what happened.
Get yourself a Doberman with ears cropped. I've had 3 of them in 30 years and they have been pussy cats.
They wouldn't even bark at people, but people are so scared of them. I never had a problem with anyone on my property.
We have had many laughs over the years at the reaction of people when they see them. They won't even get out of their cars.
I always told people that they were trained to only go on guard when we leave. My own family still thought they would get eaten.

 

[terri9630]

Quote:
Steeling eggs today, whats tomorrow? All thieves start somewhere and maybe getting yelled at will deter them from trying again. If the parents won't set boundaries then the "neighbour" needs to. A strong fence and big dogs work wonders on my neighbours brats. And yes they are brats. When we moved here all 7 of our neighbours kids trouped down here one day and said their mom said they could go horse back riding so I needed to get my horses ready. I told them horses aren't toys and that if they wanted to go riding they could go tell their mother to buy them a horse because they weren't going to touch mine. The kids were 5-16yrs.

 

[txchickie]

mom'sfolly :

This kid is ten. I have 8 and 12 year old son's; and by that age kids know what the rules are. No kid should be in someone else's back yard without permission. And kids should know not to approach animals they do not know. For both her safety and the kid's, the OP was perfectly right for yelling the kid off her property. If this child had been injured, she would be the one paying for his injuries. This is particularly important because she has other animals.

At 10, the kid should have known better. She was justified in her actions.

If they were my kids, I'd also want to be told that they were in the backyard, messing with animals, without permission.

I agree.
I can't believe some people think that she over-reacted

Say the child was attacked by the rooster, well guess what....she can be sued! I would have screamed at the child and marched him back to his house. And if that was MY child......oh boy, I would be LIVID with them and it would hurt them to sit down for several days. A 10 year old is fully capable of knowing right from wrong, and if for whatever reason they don't understand, they need to be fully supervised and not allowed to wander the neighborhood

So what if he was just taking an egg. He wasn't supposed to be on her property, he wasn't supposed to be STEALING.​

 

[babyblue]

I dont think it was an over reaction either, a rooster could blind a child. the op has horses, which could accidently kill a child. and he was STEALING. dont know where most people come from, but around here stealing is a crime punishable by law. what bugs me most is the childs parents are the ones likely to have sent the child over for an egg.

 

[Prettiest Frog]

I have a cousin I dislike immensely.

Once, he 'visited' a neighbor's house, took their week old kittens, and threw them to another neighbor's dog (known to be mean, but kept well contained normally).

He was seven when he did this.

Frankly, she under-reacted a lot more than over-reacted, IMHO

 

[Rin]

So did NOT over-react. How would you feel having someone trespass in YOUR coop and raiding YOUR nests? Age doesn't MATTER, if he's too young to know better he shouldn't even be out by himself like that in the first place.

Even if she gifted them eggs in the past that doesn't mean they should feel entitled to free eggs and at ten he KNEW better. Growing up, the Winndixie my mum took me and my brother to for groceries always gave us each a free cookie of our choosing. We never mistook this to mean we could snatch all the cookies we wanted without asking the baker at the counter though. Mind you we were both younger than ten and still knew better. That also didn't involve the trespassing and serious possible harm this kid put himself into.