[joyfull]

Please could you all be careful about mentioning where you live and any other details that make your places easily identifiable as this forum is viewable by anybody with access to a computer. Also please don't let this thread turn into a people bashing thread (whether against the police or any campers nearby) not all are bad and we don't want to have a slander/liable case against us. If the thread does start to go this way I shall have to either lock it or remove it which would be a shame as at the moment it serves as a warning for us all to be extra vigilant.

[Ice]

Well said joyfull.  Also, it would be disrespectful to hijack a thread about a very sad story to vent anger at the police per se rather than to commiserate and be helpful. 

[hillfooter]

The sad thing is that the people who do these despicable things probably know about chickens and quite possible keep them themselves.  

In the horse world there are local horse watch networks and if there are thefts everyone in the vicinity gets to know about it and are extra vigilant.  These stories on chat lines help but aren't localised enough and don't reach enough keepers.  The technology to set up a chicken watch group regionally organised exists, it just lacks the organisation to start it and publicise it's existance.  The Police could play a role here like they do with neighourhood watch schemes.  Seems like something which is worth lobbying for.  What do people think?  Is it practical and would it act as a deterant.
HF

[joyfull]

Think thats a good idea HF, we have had a few birds stolen around here in the past few months. But do you only include people who sell their chickens/eggs or do you also include people like me who just have around 50 as pets with a few eggs spare and then there are the backyard poultry keepers and those that show their birds.  It could be quite difficult to organize around here as there are just so many with chickens.

[Mutemonster]

thats relay horrible

nasty pastes

[D]

I'm sorry to hear of your loss, something similar happened to me a little while ago. A couple of months after I got my first four hens I decided to get two more - a Malay and a Faverolles. They were both young birds around the POL mark. I had them for ten days up on our allotment. Mum went down one day to let them out and discovered that the two new birds had been stolen. Our initial thought was that someone had stolen them to order and as a result we informed the police and the place we got the birds from. The police took our statement and to be fair were quite helpful. We didn't expect to get them back we just hoped to stir a storm, so to speak. We also put an article in the local paper just to see if that would do anything. We had a phone call about five days later from the police to say that they had found the bodies of the two birds in the field next to where we keep the birds. They didn't say how they were killed although there are some vicious rumours. I still can't believe that someone would do it - just for fun! It still makes absolutely no sense, and even less in that they only took two out of the six. We've still not heard anything, probably because no-one can prove anything. We did think about putting cameras in the coop after we built a new one but so far we've not had anymore trouble - touch wood.

[hillfooter]

Think thats a good idea HF, we have had a few birds stolen around here in the past few months. But do you only include people who sell their chickens/eggs or do you also include people like me who just have around 50 as pets with a few eggs spare and then there are the backyard poultry keepers and those that show their birds.  It could be quite difficult to organize around here as there are just so many with chickens.

For it to work it would need to include anyone who wanted to subscribe just like this site.  It would need to mail out warnings which could be automated or alternatively warnings could be posted and reply on people to poll the site.

The network my wife belongs to operates by one person who mails out warnings to a network of local horse keepers,  I aggree that for chicken keeping the scale might be too large to be done on a voluntary basis but it would probably need to be organised an a smaller regional basis such that individual representative could cover a more manageable area as neighbourhood schemes work almost on a road by road basis.
HF