Redland Rambles

Feral dogs worked open this latch and managed to get inside the chicken tractor.

Last week Farmer Margie told me that feral dogs came on her property again and killed several chickens. Margie had heard her own dogs barking in the middle of the night, got up and went to investigate. She discovered that a chicken tractor closest to the road had been broken into by feral dogs. Four hens lay dead. The big golden rooster known as Fancypants (Margie’s daughter Rachel named him) was injured but survived.

There have been several chicken kills at Bee Heaven over the last three or four years due to feral dogs. They come at night through gaps in the fence, looking for something to eat — or kill. They smell chickens and are big and strong enough to somehow break in to the tractors, the portable metal coops that the chickens live in.  Several dozen chickens so far have been killed by feral dogs.

Bloody pawprints on the top of the chicken tractor.

The worst killing happened on January 16, 2009. Two large dogs (you could tell by the bloody paw prints) broke in to three chicken tractors and decimated about two dozen birds. Feathers and blood and torn chicken parts lay scattered in the front yard. Margie lost good birds that night: Goliath (that was my name for him), the large gentle Cuckoo Maran rooster, and Henita, the little black hen with black shiny feathers.

Feral dogs are the biggest reason why egg production is way down for the second season. There just aren’t enough hens at Bee Heaven to meet the demand for eggs. And it takes some time for baby chicks to grow up and start laying.

Feral dogs are also a huge, ongoing problem in Redland. I’ve heard stories about dogs killing chickens at other farms. At least one dog was spotted with a chicken in its mouth. It got shot. End of problem? Not really.

These feathers are all that’s left of a chicken killed by dogs.

The problem continues as long as people keep dumping their unwanted dogs in farm country. What are they thinking when they do that? That someone will magically take in and care for the now-discarded family member? Not likely, and dogs go feral and become hard to catch. They run in the night killing chickens and other animals to survive. Is this what the owners want for their once beloved pets?

Read Margie’s post Requiem for a rooster at Bee Heaven Farm’s blog.