Sorry to hear that this has happened.
The wifey and the youngest insisted for two years that we get chickens. PITA are the chickens. One now has a new name, Miracle, because it got sick and should have died. It lives in a dog kennel in the dinning room until it gains more weight.
We had to give Miracle antibiotics for close to two weeks, twice a day, which saved the birds life. The chicken gets out in the yard once or twice a day by itself because the other birds attack it. I think they know it is sick and thus they hen peck the poor critter.
These things are pets and I danged well know it. When Miracle got sick the wifey did not know what to do. I told her to call the vet, who happens to be a neighbor, and the only vet in the area that treats chickens. I figured it would cost us a LOT more to treat Miracle than to go get a new chick but remember, these things are pets, not farm animals. We got lucky in that the vet charged not one red cent. :shocked: She is using Miracle as a test case since she has treated few chickens but expects to treat more as more people raise back yard chickens. The antibiotics she had on hand from another case and where free but she did not charge us for XRays. :confused3::thumbsup:
I was working at home one day last week and the youngest said there were stray dogs in the yard. Sure enough two black lab puppies were running around the garden. The puppies looked to be 9-12 months old and they were circling the garden like sharks. Why? I moved the Chicken Tank into the fenced garden over the winter so we could let the chickens out without having to watch them too much. The chickens were doing chicken stuff in the garden and the dogs wanted to do dog stuff to the chickens. I should have a planted garden right now but I can't because I have to set up a chicken run to move the Chicken Tanks and chickens into... PITA.
If we had not been home or if the youngest had not look out the window, those dogs might have been able to get into the garden and started killing chickens. The dogs were not barking and I had no way of knowing they were out there. I am surprised the chickens did not squawk. THAT I would have heard.
I would have thought that the bird in a cage would have been safe. Short of building VERY strong, fenced in fowl runs there is always a chance of this sort of thing happening. A month back we saw a raccoon on our place for the very first time. I have always been amazed that we have seen no sign of coons. I built the Chicken Tank to keep out coons and other critters but we let the chickens out in the afternoon after the hawks have sorta settled down for the day. Even then I have seen hawks in trees watching the roaming chickens and we have seen an owl during the daytime doing eyeballing the chickens.
I don't see what you could have done differently except build a very strong chicken run. I am about to put up a run for the chickens but it will only keep out a determined K9 for a short time. The real protection for the chickens is the Chicken Tank but when the chickens are loose in the afternoon they are vulnerable. I might put up some netting in the new chicken run to protect the chickens from hawks and owls though since they are a much bigger threat. The dogs were only the fourth set of dogs I have seen on our place in over a decade. I think they escaped from a house to our SW or W. We also have seen a cat around the house. I can't tell if it is a stray that was dumped on the road behind us or if it is a cat from a house to the W. It has hung around the garden fence a few times which I do not like.
Even with a strong run, one of the Rhode Island Reds likes to fly out of the garden since the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. :laughing::laughing::laughing: If that chicken had been out of the garden the day when the dogs showed up it would not have been pretty. The chicken might escape one dog but two is long odds for the chicken.
Later,
Dan
