we left our puppy unsupervised with the chickens a bit too long the other day, and she attacked our "alpha" hen.
not sure if she'll survive, but she's doing fine right now. $600 of emergency surgery, and now we have to see how she heals. she's missing skin off her back, and has some deep bite wounds, so the concern is about infection. quite traumatic for everybody. :(
i'm really amazed at how resilient she is. she never seemed to go into shock, and she's quite her usual self (temperment) by all outward appearances (except for a 1/4th of her back skin and feathers missing). i keep telling myself "its only money".
not sure if she'll survive, but she's doing fine right now. $600 of emergency surgery, and now we have to see how she heals. she's missing skin off her back, and has some deep bite wounds, so the concern is about infection. quite traumatic for everybody. :(
i'm really amazed at how resilient she is. she never seemed to go into shock, and she's quite her usual self (temperment) by all outward appearances (except for a 1/4th of her back skin and feathers missing). i keep telling myself "its only money".
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SF Bay Area
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Re: dog got one of our chickens... ouch!
Thu, April 3, 2008 - 9:53 PMYi! I'll send my thoughts her way and hope she's as resilient as a chicken can be, which is pretty resilient. One of mine lost a horrifying amount of her back from a possum attack and got over it, even growing most of her normal feathers back...and she actually went into shock. She lost some status when she reintegrated, but it was something she was struggling over when she was injured. Did they tell you to keep her away from other chickens until her wound scabs over, or try reintroducing her?
Some friends of mine have a hen who almost got killed by a dog and lost tons of skin around her neck area. She didn't grow the feathers back and got tons of scar tissue, so they renamed her "Neck-Ra." -
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Re: dog got one of our chickens... ouch!
Fri, April 4, 2008 - 6:22 AMYes, I agree about being careful about introducing her. Chickens are very good at noticing weakness and attacking. If you do have to keep her separate you can reintroduce her again. The best way is to have her separated by something like chicken wire so that they can see eachother throughout the day. After a couple of weeks try letting her roam with the other chickens to see how they behave, if all goes well you will then be able to move her into the coup at night with the other hens.
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Re: dog got one of our chickens... ouch!
Fri, April 4, 2008 - 6:19 AMIt is quite amazing what they can recover from. I had a chicken that got its head caught and tore off most of its scalp. I disinfected it and hoped for the best, and the skin and some feathers have grown over. It is really quite remarkable. Hope yours does well. -
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Re: dog got one of our chickens... ouch!
Fri, April 4, 2008 - 8:42 AMI dont want to be the bearer of bad news but...I remember from a previous post, that if a dog attacks a chicken he needs to be put down because he does it once, he will do it over and over. -
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Re: dog got one of our chickens... ouch!
Mon, April 7, 2008 - 4:20 AMwow, you paid 600 for the hen???
my father in law said his dog got a chicken once, he tied the dead bird to his neck and left it there for a week (outside)
the dog never tried for another chicken again.... -
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Re: dog got one of our chickens... ouch!
Mon, April 7, 2008 - 4:21 AMwhat about a special diet, increasing flax or something....can you find some chickweed outside....it grows every where here.....helps promote healing and is good all around...birds love it, hence the name 'chick' weed
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Re: dog got one of our chickens... ouch!
Thu, April 17, 2008 - 12:02 PMI spoke to a woman (someone I plan on buying a hog from) who told me that her father beat the dog with the dead chicken until there was nothing but feet left of the bird. The dog never did it again. Farmer stock...pretty intense people, way old school! I was enraged with my dog when she "ate" my chickens but I don't think I have that kind of rage. One of the birds that my dog killed we ate. Waste is evil, and the birds are not my pets. Better to feed my family.
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Re: dog got one of our chickens... ouch!
Mon, April 7, 2008 - 4:04 PMAren't we expecting a bit too much of a dog? Afterall all that flapping of wings would get any animal excited. I just don't let my dog have the chance to get to my chickens because I am sure she would get so excited that she would lose control and could hurt/kill one. -
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Re: dog got one of our chickens... ouch!
Wed, April 9, 2008 - 11:17 AMmy husband hunts with his hunting dog (different birds)
The dog is also my best friend who I have trained to leave the birds alone unless he is instructed to help, for example chase the hawk trying to scoop up the chicks etc.
They can be trained, I'm proof of that.
I have a great story of when my rooster was attacking my poor mom, she looked at the dog (as she was full of scratches and blood) and said get him, that dog pinned the rooster down without killing him and my mom just waited for me to come home and deal with the whole mess.
The rooster was fine, the dog gently held it down with its mouth until I came home and told him to "drop bird" -
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Re: dog got one of our chickens... ouch!
Wed, April 9, 2008 - 9:57 PMHey Scooter X,
God bless you. I can think of a whole lot of things worth 600 Bucks that people spend their money on that are not worth shit.
Dougfir
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Re: dog got one of our chickens... ouch!
Thu, April 10, 2008 - 7:33 AMour dog is a helper too....
though, he still likes to chase them when he is bored.....the kids call him when the rooster's get to close. he never hurts them, just corrals them away.....it is great
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Re: dog got one of our chickens... ouch!
Thu, April 10, 2008 - 3:34 PMNice one. I have trained my dog to do that to my cat whenever she gets up on the table, or starts to sharpen her claws on my furniture. But the funny thing is the cat now recognises that I have told the dog to get her. But when the dog does get hold of her, she doesn't hurt her. She just pins her down and starts licking her. The cat hates it, probably the dog breath doesn't help!
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Re: dog got one of our chickens... ouch!
Thu, April 17, 2008 - 7:23 AMI'm sorry for your loss. My dog got into our coop last year and ate (played with to death) all eight of our chickens. This was our first batch ever so we had developed pet like feelings for them. It was devastating. Since then we no long have pet chickens, but livestock...and we don't name our animals. Sadly, I guess, it forced me to develop some emotional callous towards our flock. -
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Re: dog got one of our chickens... ouch!
Thu, April 17, 2008 - 4:36 PMooh, that would really hurt.
Poppy, the brave chicken, seems to be making a complete recovery. (except for some feathers that will never grow back). She gets her stitches out next week.
A lot of people don't understand why we would spend so much to treat a chicken, but she's a pet. We're vegetarian, so eating her isn't on the menu. Plus, she'll lay 6 or 700 eggs over the rest of her life. -
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Re: dog got one of our chickens... ouch!
Wed, April 30, 2008 - 11:18 AMtoday Poppy was integrated back into the flock. (3 chickens in the yard seems random, but 4 is a flock). other than some missing feathers, you'd never know she'd been half-eaten. she's laying eggs and everything. chickens are hardy birds!
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