An inevitable day, especially with six dogs total across our lot and our two neighbors’, but a sad one all the same. This weekend the neighbor Lab pup learned she could jump the fence, and yesterday she also learned how to kill chickens. Garth was home getting ready to come meet me in Seattle to go see Star Trek, and when he got out of the shower he found our dogs, who were inside, all agitated, and looked outside to see the neighbor pup in the coop. The flock was scattered — he found poor Stripes’ body somewhere outside the pen, and Sick Chicken was lying up in the woods. Stripes had always been always a loner, the straggler and social outcast of the flock, so I wasn’t surprised about that, and Sick Chicken, though all better and happily reintegrated with the others, was still slower, and had a paler comb than she used to have. So I was sad, but not surprised to get Garth’s frantic phone call telling me it was these two that he had definitely found. We canceled movie plans and I hurried home as fast as is possible when one is dependent on a ferry schedule. Along the way I heard that all the others — Black Chicken, Other Black Chicken, Other Red Chicken (aka Miz Bitch), and Wilhemina — were definitely alive, as well as the two ducks and the four Wyandotte youngsters who live in the coop.
This flock was our first, and as such straddled a difficult line between pets and livestock, but leaning towards livestock. We are sad at the reduction of the flock, of course, but in this case we are also saddened by the loss of these two chickens in particular. Next time it won’t be so bad — this was our farm’s first loss of animal life — and even so, it didn’t mess me up as much as I expected (though Garth says he is “more tweaked than [he] thought [he] would be”).
So thanks, little chickens. We hope you only had one bad day in your lives. Despite your vocal protestations about how horrible it was to be left all day, or even until 7 o’clock in the morning, in your 8×14′ coop, we hope the former was true. We’ll miss you.
Stripes perches on the grape arbor to do her impression of Drill Cat.
:(
It must be the season. We lost our best hen to most probably an eagle just last week. That leaves us just one besides the darned rooster. I’m less agitated this time than by the dog attack that we had last year even though we didn’t lose any then. I think it’s because predation feels like a part of life’s cycle and a dog attack is just senseless killing.
I hope you don’t continue to have problems with that dog.
So sorry for the loss of your two girls. That is not good, but as you say, understandable. Good thing the others in the flock worked together and were faster than the neighbor’s dog.
Not sure if you can add back to your flock, and repair/strengthen the coop, but I sure hope you can!
Thanks, all, for your notes. Saara, I hope you have more chicks or pullets ready to start laying before the end of the summer? We have four Wyandotte pullets and three month-old Ameraucanas who are still chicks I guess, so we’ll still have almost doubled production by August or so. So that helps.
The chickens free-range throughout the yard all day, so I expect some of the others were across the yard and didn’t even realize what was going on. The coop itself is fine and undamaged, which is good. And, the neighbors are making the fence taller today. I don’t know how we’ll test it — bring some treats over here and try to lure the pup over, I guess — but I’m fairly confident.
RIP little chickens!
Unfortunately we only had the two hens (Wyandottes as well!) and the rooster so now we’re down to the one. We had been planning on two more soon, so I guess we’ll see about getting three. We have some friends who may be trying to give us some silkies as well, so we may have even more. Presumably they would all be laying in the fall depending on the alignment of the planets.
I’m glad to hear that your neighbors are being responsible. We haven’t seen the dogs again, but the sheriff told them they’d be shot if we did so that might be part of it. ;)
We have lost over 100 birds from various attacks from canine and feline over the last few years. Our coop gets stronger and smarter as we go on. Self-closing gates to the run and latches for the doors, deer netting across the top of the run have all been welcome improvements. Most of our massacres were in our stock tank brooder. The combination of a smart and skilled barn cat and a careless and forgetful closer of brooder lids can be a real mess.
Hope ya’ll don’t have any hassle with the neighbors and their escape artist in the future.
peace