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I think you know nothing about raising chickens or any other livestock. This person should not have to go to additional expense to protect her children or animals. How could I have free range organic poultry on my own farm or property if I follow your thought process.. The last dog that killed a chicken here is DEAD. Better fence is a nice idea but not practical in many cases and very expensive as well as labor intensive. Dogs often can jump/get over a 4 ft fence or dig under. Get in touch with the reality. Owner of the dogs have to keep them home or accept that something bad could happen to their dogs.
I think you both have good points - people should be responsible and keep their dogs at home, but by that same mentality you should keep your chickens in your own yard too. How can you do that without fencing? Are you going to shoot every dog that comes along and kills a chicken? How is that proactive in any way? Seems like a sad waste of life to me. The dog is being a dog, and you're putting a chicken buffet out for him - you owe it to your chickens to protect them in proactive ways like fencing and hardware cloth and hot wire. A gun shot as the dog runs away with a chicken doesn't do the dead ones any good.
That's how I feel about it anyway. I'm a wildlife rehabber so I save a lot of animals that people here would kill without blinking an eye. Possums and raccoons and squirrels, and plenty of other chicken killers too. They're all just trying to get along in this world and people invite them over with improperly contained garbage, pet food left outside, house openings improperly sealed, and in this case a chicken buffet. If a predator got my birds, I would chalk it up to being MY fault because I failed to protect them. The only loss I can live with is a flying predator because I can't fence the sky!
SSS is barbaric. Proactive action would prevent most of this - and it is AWFUL that you have to take such steps to protect from dogs that irresponsible people own, but there will always be predators.
My property is fenced (hog tight). I pen all birds and livestock up at night. They do stay on my property. I have several llamas to keep coyotes and dogs away. Coyotes have learned and will go around the fence of any field the llama is in rather than try to cross that field. Wild animals are not a problem, domestic dogs running loose are. When dogs come on my property and I know who owns that dog I talk to them and explain what will happen if they continue to come around and harass or harm any livestock. Usually they were not aware their dog/dogs are not staying around home and take the proper steps. I do not want to kill any dog but they can not be chasing /harassing/killing any of my livestock or poultry.
