I'm so upset - Tilly our female sebright was killed by next door's little mongrel terrier type dog!
We let our chickens out into the garden when we are around and yesterday they were out enjoying the sunshine.
Our two sebrights don't have their wings clipped and sometimes fly over the fence into next doors garden. Next door also have chickens and our sebrights love going over there to eat up the corn that their chickens spill out of their coop. This has never been a problem. They have a dog that lives in the house and they always check our chickens arent there before they let it out.
Yesterday the two sebrights were in their garden so our nextdoor neighbour takes her dog on the lead round the garden following them to chase them back over the fence!!!! Their dog is not trained at all, chokes at the lead at the best of times but this just got him totally wound up (obviously!!) When the chickens had flown up onto the fence, she let him off the lead and went back into to house.
The dog was going mental trying to get them and I ran out of the house to see what was going on. Just as i did, the dog flew at the fence the female was sitting on and she startled up and flew the wrong way!!! She tried so hard to land on the apple tree but fell down.
I screamed at the dog to stop but he got her and started mauling her and running round with her. I really thought she was dead there and then. Next door came out when i screamed and actually said 'shes dead - just leave her!!!!!!!!!' STUPID ..... GRRRRRRRRRR
The dog dropped her and she ran for cover. She let me pick her up and take her in. She had been plucked across her back with graze to her skin where feathers were ripped out. I thought she was going o pull through as she ate and drank yesterday in the house but she went downhill today. We were just checking on her after deciding to put her out of her misery if she declined in next half hour when we went in and she was obviously dead. David pulled her neck to make sure she wasn't just unconscious.
I don't know what to do - we are very close to all our neighbours and speak to them every day and there is no way of avoiding this. This woman has her heart in the right place most of the time but she really isnt very bright, doesn't think before she speaks and seems to hear what she wants and makes up her own version of reality.
She lied to her grandkids when they asked where our 'other pencilled chicken' was and just said she was 'a bit poorly'. When the kids asked today how the poorly chicken was and I said it had died, she obviously didn't put 2 and 2 together and realise it was HER DOG that killed it (she also let the kids think it was our dogs - who are extremelly well trained, would never touch anything if someone said no to them and we are happy to have out in the garden with the chickens - but we would still NEVER leave them unsupervised)
I don't blame the dog really - its just her. How can we ever trust letting any of our chickens out again? It frustrates me that she doesnt seem to understand what she did. That wasn't just some random chicken like one of her nameless laying flock they dispatch every 18 months when productivity drops. That was our pet, a rare breed that we were using to build a breeding flock from.
Sorry for the rant - needed to let it out to people I know will understand!
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March 26, 2012, 15:40