Just getting home and quick skimmed this thread. The thing that gets me is when the unthinking say a chicken only cost a few dollars and therefore isn't worth anything. Their worth is so far beyond the money we put into them (to me, it's even well beyond the thousands I've invested by the time I factor in vet bills, med supplies, housing, endless straw bales, food, vitamins etc.!). When a person has a human baby they don't have to pay anything to buy it (med bills aside!) yet it is considered priceless. When a person takes a dog home from a shelter and pays little or nothing for it they don't have to justify its value if someone hurt the dog for no good reason. Few would dare say it's worth nothing. Vet bills are expected to be paid. If someone spends little to plant many many seeds yet ends up with a hugely valuable garden, is that garden only worth the price of the seeds - no!
I am usually considered an understanding person on most things but it's been one h___ of a day today so I'm not going to hold back and instead will say that I am heartsick about all the dog attacks occurring across the land or more to the point, all the irresponsible dog owners. I've been reading heartbreaking posts one after another for years now - they are relentless and don't seem to have waned with time and I don't think it will change anytime soon if on average we take only crumbs from the offending dog owners and call it a day. I did that once because I was so wrapped up in trying to save a critically injured roo that I lost the dog person's name and phone number (they were walking by and let the dog off its leash so it could run...) - so I was never able to contact them with the bills - they likely didn't learn as much as if I had given them the absolutely huge vet bills. I am not in a frame of mind right now to be as nice as others on this thread - maybe I've just seen too much pain and suffering. And too much lack of personal responsibility in this world anymore. Cumulatively, I have taken weeks and weeks off work to nurse injured birds back to health. No one has ever paid for that - the dog's people just went on with their lives with no inconveniences to themselves.
It reminds me of a time when I was moving from Idaho to Rhode Island - we had all our worldy belongings in a trailer we were towing. An irresponsible truck driver hit us from behind (he waited too long to try to pass and hit us in the process), severing our trailer and causing it to rise up into the air and implode, destroying everything we owned in the process and speading it across hundreds of yards of fields and highway, closing I-80 for awhile (among the losses was my just completed masters thesis back when they were done on typewriters - god I'm old - lost it all and had to start all over - took another year and a half...should have had copies but had completed it seemingly minutes before the move and never anticipated it would end up shredded in the fields of Wyoming). The truck driver went on his merry way within an hour with only a ticket for "improper passing" and we were stuck in the desert for a week trying to pick everything up and waiting for an insurance adjuster. Ironically, the only food place within miles served only moldy pizza (I bet the truck driver was somewhere eating good meals!). The trucking company played dead, ignoring their responsibility completely. We finally had to sue, and they just kept ignoring all correspondence for years and years. At least no lives were lost but its that common thread of lack of personal responsibility that is undermining our quality of life and the quality of life of those in our care.
I am so sorry that this happened to you and am so sorry for your birds that will never see another sunny day. Today I want to give voice to all the chickens who have had their lives stolen in a horrific way. And also to those who recover but who have had to endure much pain and suffering and terror first.
JJ
un Most often during the entire weekends because he knows that animal control is closed over the weekend hours. I asked them to keep dog up. It hasn't happened. It is not going to be nice if my chicken pens get entered by this dog. 
