RIP Xena Chicken

[trickofthedark]

Xena Chicken was killed by a dog this afternoon. >:(

Comments

[iibnf]

I think you can hunt and kill the dog and eat it. Justified dog eatering.

[trickofthedark]

Meesto was threatening to break out his recurve...

[telosphilos]

I think he'd be justified. Honestly, I like looking at chickens and eating them more than dealing with them. I'd be reminding the neighbors of the dangers of chicken bones to dogs throats in a nice little notice about the incident. In other words, pointing out that it isn't just you being upset your chickens are in danger, but also that they should be upset that their dogs could be too.

[okojosan]

Ugh, that's too bad. :/ I hope that was the first and last time it happens.

[trickofthedark]

Me, too!

[batwrangler]

I'm sorry. Even considering them just hobby livestock, it's frustrating to loose them to predators. (Around here I'd suspect raccoons in the absence of known loose dogs.)

[trickofthedark]

I am so glad there are no raccoons here, the tales I've heard of them sound horrific.

[heavenscalyx]

I'm so sorry. Even looking upon them as a farmer, it can't be pleasant, and is certainly frustrating. On the up side, it was a dog and y'all don't have foxes or coyotes to worry about? Some of our friends lost their entire flock to a fox one afternoon, because foxes are greedy shits.

[akycha]

Feral dogs will do that too, and they don't even have a fox's excuse (if you don't interrupt a fox, in addition to killing the whole flock, or as many as they can reach, they will also cache them for later). Dogs will kill and then leave their prey because of the whole domestication business -- which seems to be what happened here.

Anyway, I'm sorry you're having dog trouble. :( I am a strong advocate of people keeping their pets under control.

[trickofthedark]

This is a teeny tiny valley town and stray/feral dogs would stick out and be caught instantly, and there's no foxes, coyotes, raccoons, or other north american predators. They did have Australian possums and English stoats a while back but an intensive woods poisoning program killed them off, which is why our neighborhood has such a resurgence of the native birds. So the only local hard-to-catch owned or stray predator animals are cats. Any loose dogs will be momentarily-escaped owned pets (because the fine for loose dogs is high and enforced).

The Dog Ranger called and did suspect it was our neighbor dogs, one of whom has an Escapey Reputation. We have no evidence though. The Dog Ranger offered to lend us a dog catching trap, but I don't think it's likely that we'd catch anything. Probably the high wind yesterday randomly and unluckily blew open the dog gate and probably we won't see any loose dogs again. I suspect this was just random bad chance.

[raqs]

Bummer! That sucks.

[trickofthedark]

Yeah. At least it wasn't Gabrielle, who is my favorite.