This is so sad...

[misskeeter]

aww, that is sad. The poor child too, to have wanted the chick and have that happen. People are just idiots with animals.

That's why I once worked in a pet store for a day and a half... I couldn't handle selling animals to people who wouldn't take care of them.

 

[missnu01]

Have you contact your local Dept of Health and Human Services (DSS) yet, or contact your local authorities for cruelty to animals?

While it sounds awful for the chick feeding your dog chicken is not at all animal abuse, and since chickens are livestock they can't legally be abused. If they could be abused then commercial operations everywhere would be prosecuted.
Would you be as upset if the family had told you they were going to take the chick and give it a good life before butchering and eating it themselves? Would that be as reprehensible?

 

[DelcoChix]

While it sounds awful for the chick feeding your dog chicken is not at all animal abuse, and since chickens are livestock they can't legally be abused. If they could be abused then commercial operations everywhere would be prosecuted.
Would you be as upset if the family had told you they were going to take the chick and give it a good life before butchering and eating it themselves? Would that be as reprehensible?

I think it was the callous way the situation was handled that makes this so wrong...if the OP knew from the start they'd feed their dog the chick then it would have been up to OP whether she still chose to give it away. Making it more challenging is having a tenuous working relationship with the mom and the mom's reassurance that the chick would be well taken care of. If the dad disliked the 'noise' of a chick then why not banish it to the far corner of the house and then make the child or mom return it the next day?

I don't think this would specifically fall under the category of 'animal abuse' (although livestock can be abused, and their caretakers can be cited and even sent to prison for it--happened at a dairy farm in my county a couple of years ago...horrible treatment using a pitchfork on downed cows on video)..it is more the entire circumstance here: teacher works with the kids mom, both kid and mom push to adopt a baby hatched in the classroom, promise to take care of it properly, are given instructions and obviously have resource available to them if they have questions...within 24 hours the fluffball is thrown to the dog.

 

[SD Bird Lady]

Have you contact your local Dept of Health and Human Services (DSS) yet, or contact your local authorities for cruelty to animals?

I think that is a bit extreme. It is calls about minor things like this that leave kids being burned with cigarettes and left dead in closets at meth houses (happened in our area about 6 mo. ago) because the Departments are so overloaded with calls about Jane spanked her son in walmart for stealing a candy bar. It is sad but what if the chicken was a year old and a coon or hawk ate it..Dogs are predators and birds are prey. My dog ate 3 of our chickens one day just on a whim...it never happened again. But should my kids be taken away b/c nature took it's course??? I realize it breaks your heart that it happened but atleast it wasn't the cat who played with it for 1/2 an hour and then walked away leaving it to bleed to death. I once had a dog who ate all of my goldfish....believe me it is a quick death and then you aren't buying the dog food that has millions of pounds of mechanically seperated chicken by-products in it....really it is the same thing just more out of sight out of mind.

 

[chickenuout]

I cried at that story the same thing happened to my friend in Tennessee

 

[misskeeter]

I think it was the callous way the situation was handled that makes this so wrong...if the OP knew from the start they'd feed their dog the chick then it would have been up to OP whether she still chose to give it away. Making it more challenging is having a tenuous working relationship with the mom and the mom's reassurance that the chick would be well taken care of.  If the dad disliked the 'noise' of a chick then why not banish it to the far corner of the house and then make the child or mom return it the next day?  

I don't think this would specifically fall under the category of 'animal abuse' (although livestock can be abused, and their caretakers can be cited and even sent to prison for it--happened at a dairy farm in my county a couple of years ago...horrible treatment using a pitchfork on downed cows on video)..it is more the entire circumstance here: teacher works with the kids mom, both kid and mom push to adopt a baby hatched in the classroom, promise to take care of it properly, are given instructions and obviously have resource available to them if they have questions...within 24 hours the fluffball is thrown to the dog.  

Believe me, I would never have sent that chick home if I thought that would happen.... I was hesitant, but never would I have expected that...part of the reason I kept the chicks for two weeks before sending them home was because I wanted to let them grow a bit and be less needy...

 

[BrittBergh]

That's why I once worked in a pet store for a day and a half... I couldn't handle selling animals to people who wouldn't take care of them.

I worked in a pet store once. I was fired one day after refusing to ring up a bearded dragon for a family. I was helping out cleaning tanks during down time and started talking to the family, who knew nothing, had nothing for the lizard, and thought it was neat so they wanted it...just it. Didnt have enough money for anything else but it and said they would find bugs to feed it at home... Um no...sorry no... so I was fired for that.

Im so sorry about this chick. What a horrible mean thing to do...ugh what a crappy dad from the sounds of it, snap judgement.

 

[Going Quackers]

That's true... I never would have thought that.

I am really glad I've got three other families who are providing wonderful and loving forever homes. That's three new chicken keepers that never would have considered it if it weren't for my classroom hatch.

And those are/will be some SPOILED chickens... I've got one dad who is a policeman that has actually slept on the floor next to the brooder because the chicks were "lonely" their first night home. LOL... I didn't even do that when I brought mine home last year... Now mine did sit on my lap and watch tv with me for several hours each night until they moved outside.

Well try and focus on the positive, yes, i know way easier said than done.

This family that took the chick actually has a macaw now that I think of it... a scarlet macaw... The mom loves it, but the kiddo told me the dad complains about the noise all the time...

I just now remembered that... (he told me that a LONG time ago)

That is just odd, a macaw is beyond loud! have you spoken with any of the adults, the mum? is there more to this story than the child said?

 

[Going Quackers]

While it sounds awful for the chick feeding your dog chicken is not at all animal abuse, and since chickens are livestock they can't legally be abused. If they could be abused then commercial operations everywhere would be prosecuted.
Would you be as upset if the family had told you they were going to take the chick and give it a good life before butchering and eating it themselves? Would that be as reprehensible?

I don't think raising meat birds and this situation are the same, if it went down the way it did, it wasn't bought with the intent to feed the dog, it was just cruelly tossed outside to fend for itself and that resulted in the dog eating it.

 

[jdywntr]

I'm sorry that this happened and I don't want to hurt any feelings. I think that the decision to start raising chickens needs to be made by the family. I think that hatching chicks in the classroom, while a great learning experience, can put people in the same position that they may be in when they sees easter chicks and ducklings and they "have to have it" and "will take care of it" and they impulsively purchase them. Planning and forethought isn't put into the decision to raise chickens and the long term needs of the bird are probably not considered.

It does seem like you were lucky to have some families that are being very responsible and already building coops for their birds. I do hope that the families were able to either adopt more than one or plan on purchasing additional chicks since they are flock animals.

I used to work at the SPCA when I lived in Florida and, sadly, every spring we would get about 100 chicks brought in by teachers that hatched them in the classroom, we were in the suburbs and not equiped to deal with them and they were not legal to own at the time in the area. Most were fostered by staff for a few weeks, including myself, and then they were picked up by a person that owned a lot of land several counties away. The chickens were basically just free range there and I have no idea how many would survive. This was basically the only option other than euthanizing all of them. This experience put a bad taste in my mouth about classroom chicks as, at least then, there never seemed to be a plan for them once hatched.

With the situation, there would not be any laws that were broken. Proving that the dad intentionally put the chick out for the dog to eat would be impossible. But because chickens are livestock abuse needs to be deliberate and intentional. Many people feed live animals to different types of pets (snakes, fish etc) I don't think that they would typically feed chicks but....

Again, I don't mean to hurt any feelings, just want to give my viewpoint. I am very sorry that you and the children had to deal with this.

If you choose to hatch eggs in the classroom again, why not see if you can find a local breeder that hatches out their birds and you can return the chicks to the breeder once hatched? That way the kids get the experience of watching incubation and you don't need to deal with finding homes for them. I'm not in your area but I'd be willing to "donate" eggs in that situation if asked.