I came home from work tonight and found that 2 feral dogs had gotten into our chicken coop (dug under the fence) and got most of our chickens. The roommate had to put 2 out of their misery, and 6 were already dead, including our bantam rooster, mostly from broken necks or internal bleeding.


We have 3 left: 1 with a fairly bad open wound on her back with muscle showing and flaps of skin, 1 with several puncture wounds, and 1 with bad wounds in general. I tried to clean out the wounds and feathers as best I could.

Question:
1) Are they worth taking to the vet? I think the worst one will be put down even though she's very alert and eating and drinking, and the others might need stitches.
2) Any idea how much this will cost? I'm thinking somewhere around 200+ min.

I wish I had pictures but no digital camera.

11/14/2006 12:39:29 AM

No, they're chickens. They aren't pets, they're food. They're dirty, stupid birds it would be a waste of money and the vet's time.

11/14/2006 12:49:57 AM

<------ Poultry science major.

I have never seen a single chicken worth taking to the vet. Unless you have some very unique breed that is on the brink of extinction, I would just perform cervical dislocations on all of them and start over. Pm me if you need more info and I could hook you up with the proper person to speak to.

11/14/2006 12:49:58 AM

Solution: nuggets.

11/14/2006 12:53:04 AM

Quote :

"perform cervical dislocations"

I'm guessing that just means break their neck?

11/14/2006 1:05:43 AM

Betadine + super glue (stiches) if they get better great. if not a total of ~ $.43 per chicken lost

11/14/2006 1:06:40 AM

If any of my girls were hurt, I'd call an avian vet and see if they could just patch them up.

My area for them is very well protected though. They're inside our high fenced yard, then inside another fence and have two layers of netting attached on top. The coop is totally enclosed except for a small chicken door cut into the main door.

I'm hoping that I'll never have to deal with predators.

11/14/2006 8:17:43 AM

bake them

11/14/2006 8:23:21 AM

I hate feral dogs



shoot the dogs too

11/14/2006 8:27:07 AM

if the dogs attack your chickens you can kill them. I would start there. No chickens are cheap to buy so just put them down and get new ones.

11/14/2006 9:30:45 AM

I'm sorry you lost the chickens.

That said...

Can I have any of them? I bet they're delicious.

11/14/2006 10:19:11 AM

Poor chickens I'm sorry to hear about this. If you guys are getting any more and need help putting up another fence, just give me a call and I'll help. Brad should have my phone number.

Best of luck!

11/14/2006 10:45:40 AM

Bring them to me, I'll fix them.

11/14/2006 10:46:35 AM

Haha...all the closet Poultry Majors came out for this one. Why not just hop over to Scott and ask one of the professors? I think we have an avian vet...maybe carver or sheldon?

Or just go to the vetschool and see what you can do

11/14/2006 12:12:33 PM

I would put out little neighborhood warning signs for the dogs and alert animal control as well, those dogs need to be caught and humanely euthanized. They were probably pit bulls that escaped from my area. I swear every time I see the black people out and about they have a new pit bull with them.

11/14/2006 12:22:51 PM

^^No, I want to eat them

11/14/2006 1:02:59 PM

^^ you are pretty judgemental about alot of things



there is a huge wild/feral dog problem at my farm
I've seen all types of mixes come by while I deer hunt


I usually ruin a day of deer hunting when I see one too... I hate how people let dogs out to fend on their own like that... so I shoot them because they are notorious for chasing livestock down

11/14/2006 2:06:40 PM

^I don't see how my post was judgmental. It was an observation.

11/14/2006 2:30:01 PM

I'm sorry about your chickens.

11/14/2006 3:05:12 PM

I'm a poultry major also, and I doubt a vet would even mess with chickens if you wanted them to. Have a big chicken bog and buy some more.

11/14/2006 6:03:34 PM

I'm not a poultry science major, but when my chicken started smelling funny and not moving much we put on some Metallica and cut it's head off with a hatchet and threw it in the Darell's parking lot. But like I said, I'm not a poultry science major.

11/14/2006 6:16:22 PM

Quote :

"Have a big chicken bog and buy some more."

Hell yeah.

11/14/2006 6:34:01 PM

We're already eating most of the chickens as it is.

Because avian vet care is prohibitively expensive and difficult (like $500 for total care for 1 chicken when I called this morning, stitches don't really stay well in birds, and they should have died already from a heart attack), we're going to try doctoring them ourselves with Betadine, vetrap and gauze after clipping the feathers off near the wounds.

I figure it's worth a shot since they survived all this already, and they don't seem to be in any pain since they're acting like themselves.

P.S. Animal control was called by neighbors, I don't know if the dogs have been caught or not.

If I see a dog not on a leash near my house again, it's going to get some buckshot in its ass.

11/14/2006 7:03:58 PM

i just wanted to check in as a poultry science grad

11/14/2006 9:17:56 PM

11/14/2006 9:19:06 PM

don't put them down. if you are gonna put them down you might as well give them away or look into fighting them? come down to angier on tuesday nights at the horse stables we fight them out there. if you have a good trained chicken you cna make an easy 200bux a night. just need to invest in about 15 bux worth of talons

chickens that have already been through battle with a large animal such as a dog are instant veterans.

11/14/2006 9:55:40 PM

just roll the pumpkins off of the posts and get some new birds.


i mean really, at this point its too late to glue them back together. after 3-6 hours the risk of infection is too high to stitch them up. thats why they dont stitch people up after a certain amount of time.

11/15/2006 4:55:18 AM