Well, I'm going to weigh in here.
Maybe I can get it across a little better.
In all the years that I've had people's loose dogs kill my livestock, I've only had ONE person offer to pay for the birds. The lambs I lost never were paid for. I lost more livestock to my neighbor's dogs than to coyotes hands down.
My attitude is that I don't raise and care for MY livestock just so YOUR dog can run in there and kill them.
When your dog is out of your sight, you can't guarentee what it will do. It's in a dog's nature to kill poultry, sheep, goats, ducks, etc, etc.
Turkeys have a lot of personality. EVEN if the owner of the dog replaced that turkey hen, it wouldn't be the same animal.
Its as if you lost a child. Yes, you can have another child, but it won't be THAT child.
I have dogs. They stay in with my sheep. (LGDs) I keep my dogs and livestock on my property. That's part of being a responsible animal owner.
Now, I'll tell you a little secret. We bought a farm 40 minutes away from where we have our sheep now. One of our neighbors had a pitt bull cross entire female. She came down to our farm to mate up with another loose dog a little further down the road. A few days later, she was back with a half-grown pup from a previous litter. She lay under some rolls of field fence growling at us. We had never had contact with this animal before. She did not go home. I fully expect to have problems with her offspring, as he looks like a shepard mix. The NEXT time I see him on my farm, he won't go home either.
I don't know where you live, chicks&horses, but if you are one of MY new neighbors, and you care about protecting your dogs, you'll keep them at home.
I have NO MORE PATIENCE with irresponsible pet owners.
I know nothing about you! I was talking about people in general who have no real empathy for their dogs OR for their actions aganist others loved pets when they let them roam free. Its okay to disagree with each other..
