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Chcken Massacre at Goey's


Goey
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The neighbors dogs got out and wreaked havoc on my chicken flock. The death toll is mounting.

Many are dead - others are mamed and dying.

I got one of the dogs with my Sweedish Mauser - the other one escaped.

Sadness

Edited by Goey
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This is a good neighbor. He is my friend. The dogs getting out is not a patern or something he irresponsibly allows. In three years this is only the 2nd time they have gotten out - this time due to the carelessness of his 15 year old daughter who left the gate open.

He came over after he heard the shot. He helped me clean up the mess and has already apologized and paid me for the dead and dying chickens. While we are both sad about the loss of the dog, it is not an issue. He does not blame me. He has goats and has had to kill mauradings dogs himself.

I guess I can't ask for much more than that.

Caca Pasa

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I lost my last thtree hens a few weeks back...after they left me 9 eggs. They all disappeared at the same time, and now I'm looking around for replacements.

My neighbor has a dog that comes up from time to time, but he never bothers anything...except he's the daddy of all the puppies for a mile radius.

The problem we have is this is the "end of the road" where city dwellers dump their unwanted cats and dogs...I think they must come from as far away as Little Rock and Springfield, Mo. I guess they think we have nothing better to do than feed and take care of their discarded pets.

It seems I have to shoot one or two every month or so and I'm getting damn sick of shooting dogs, although Andrew and I are getting pretty good with my .38 spl revolver. The poor animals don't know anything, having grown up in a home, then they're dumped out here to fend for themselves. It's kinda sad to have to kill some poor dumb animal whose only offense was being dumb and hungry, but we gotta do what we gotta do.

We have plenty of predators as it is with racoons, possums, bobcats, bears etc. etc., and it's not so sad shooting them...actually, possums NEED killing just out of general principles...they can devastate a garden, too and a racoon is pretty good eating, especially if you smoke it real good.

Anyway, the dumped pets are probably our biggest nuisance.

I commiserate with your situation and if you lived a little closer, I'd take you to the chicken and small livestock auction where you can get some pretty good deals on stuff if you hit it right.

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I'm glad to know that there are just men who walk the earth too. It seems you live in a good "neighborhood" Goey.

I'm sorry for his loss too. I wonder how he'll teach his daughter some of the consequences of not paying attention all the time. I don't know her so I won't guess, but I'm sure he'll think of something so she gets the lesson.

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I'm sorry you lost your chickens, Goey, and sorry your neighbor lost his dog. I understand your having to kill it, but it still saddens me, as I'm sure it did you. Poor dog was just doing what comes naturally in the animal kingdom, I guess, but I've heard that once they get the taste of blood, it's impossible to keep them from killing livestock again.

Aside from your financial, egg, and fried chicken loss, I can't bring myself to grieve for the chickens. I'm not too fond of the little beasts except for eating them, having had to fend off attacks from the Big Daddy Rome City Rooster on more than one occasion while gathering eggs, and having had my arms pecked like mad by the "teenage" chickens while just trying to clean out their stupid water trough.

Krys, I'd imagine losing her dog would be all the lesson the neighbor girl needs about the consequences of not paying attention.

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A family legend is that my great-grandfather cured my mom's dog of killing chickens. He took a chicken that Buster, a mostly beagle had killed, and tied it around the dog's neck! By the time the chicken had rotted off, Buster was totally disinterested and never so much as looked toward the henhouse again.

WG

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sad so sad

As for the dumping of animals people have this strange idea that domesticated animals, especially cats, become wilderness savvy the minute you drive away.

Reality check your animal has no more clue about how to survive in the wilderness for an extended period of time than your 8 year old does-- they die of starvation or are picked off by predators. Catching a chicken in a cage or a mouse in the house is vastly different than catching wild things who have and intimate knowledge of their environment and room to run.

And dogs form packs, its instinctive, a pack of domesticated dogs is extremely dangerous and a pack of feral dogs is worse, having no fear of man they will attack anything or anyone--better to face a pack of wolves, whose natural instinct is to head away from man, than a pack of these killers

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This is a good neighbor. He is my friend. The dogs getting out is not a patern or something he irresponsibly allows. In three years this is only the 2nd time they have gotten out - this time due to the carelessness of his 15 year old daughter who left the gate open.

He came over after he heard the shot. He helped me clean up the mess and has already apologized and paid me for the dead and dying chickens. While we are both sad about the loss of the dog, it is not an issue. He does not blame me. He has goats and has had to kill mauradings dogs himself.

Unfortunate event. Nice outcome!

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Goey, I'm sorry for the loss and thankful that you and your neighbor connected on it.

I agree the girl needs to be aware of her neglect and the consequences. Good learning for her and if she's a good kid she'll figure it out and make it less painful for herself.

I hope the uncertainty of life has improved.

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Linda,

I have had up to 120 at chickens at time and have never had one attack me or my daughter. That includes the big roosters, some of are which are the game type. Now I have about 25 adult birds left (after the massacre) and about 40 chicks at various stages.

Except for a very few, I have raised all of these chickens either from the time they were day old chicks, or I hatched them from my incubators. Each chicken has its own personality and I have gotten to know each one individually. (As much as you can know a chicken).

We have a couple of Cubalaya hens, Myrtle and Katlin, that like to ride around on my shoulder.

I wonder why the chickens were so mean at Rome City? Poor cramped conditions can cause agressive behavior. What were the conditions for the chickens like there?

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Goey, the little feathered beasts at Rome City were free-range chickens. They had a huge barn (you couldn't call it a coop--very big) to sleep in at night or for shelter in bad weather, but otherwise they had a really big yard to run around in. It was kept quite clean, considering how much chickens poop all over the place.

Dunno why the teenagers were so mean. When I'd reach into their trough to wipe away the slimy residue that forms in the bottom, they'd come at me with their pinchy beaks pecking at my exposed arms (I felt like "Clarita"--"bitten by devils"!)

In fairness, I think Big Daddy Rome City Rooster took a dislike to me when I was looking over a hen who was acting sick. He went at me that day and from then on, flying at me with both feet, wings flapping and trying to lunge at me with his beak. The farm supervisor, who was an honest-to-goodness farmer from Kansas and a great guy, said Mr. Rooster probably thought I was hurting/stealing one of Big Daddy's "women."

Now that I think back on it, I was afraid of my grandfather's chickens as a child, and I really hadn't outgrown that completely by the time I worked on the RC farm. Maybe the little beasts just smelled fear. :biglaugh:

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When I was seven I went to my Aunts for two weeks in the summer.

I was a city girl and had no knowledge about a working farm

Everyone had chores so my Aunt decided I could gather eggs, figuring I couldn't get into too much trouble.

She had white leghorns and they saw me coming from a mile away.

Monday I was in tears, it took forever to collect those eggs and put them in my metal pail while they pecked and lunged at me

Tuesday, While dodging hen #1 the bucket clunked hen #2 upside the head.

She reeled woozily on her nest and I quickly gathered the eggs. Then I went down the line of laying boxes clunking chickens as I went

My Aunt later saw her chickens reeling like Jackie Gleason doing his drunk impression. So she went out and cleaned the feed troughs

Wednesday, having the system down pat, I whipped through those chickens and had those eggs collected in nothing flat. That evening my uncle and aunt cleaned the feed bin to the bottom looking for argot as "drunk" chickens did pirouettes

Thursday I and my trusty bucket headed for the hen house --I clunked one and then I heard my aunts voice and a hand not gently on my shoulder.

The chickens resumed a normal life, and I sat gingerly for a day

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I have heard the tying-a-chicken-around-the-neck thing, too. Molly Ivins wrote about it in a column, just after Bush was re-elected, and made an analogy between the second Bush administration and the neck-tyed chicken. Said it should cure the country of electing Republicans for awhile.

Goey, no offense, if you're a Republican. I'm sad for your loss of your little chicken buddies. Raising them from babies, and loosing so many at once must have been very hard.

Are your two shoulder-riders okay?

niKa

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Goey, I'm so sorry for your loss. As you know from our talks in chat, I had chickens in the past and spoiled them rotten. I used to love to sit on the steps of the porch with big old BigFoot (25 lb rooster) in my lap and pet him as you would a cat. He followed me around like a little puppy dog too when I was in the yard. They really can become beloved pets as well as give you nice fresh eggs every day.

BIG *hugs* my friend.

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Joey you have got a great neighbor.

I would buy yourself a semi auto rifle. You can pick up one for less than $500.

I know many ranchers that will shot any dog they see on sight. Wild dogs kill livestock like crazy. Dogs will chase deer just for sport. They run the animal till it drops and then kill it and leave. They don't even eat it.

People who dump dogs are hurting the dog when they think its better than taking it to the pound. Many dogs starve because they have had all the hunting bread out of them.

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