My right hand neighbors are raising 50+ chickens and 2 turkey in a fenced area in their backyard. I am splitting feed costs for 34 of these birds (30 broilers, 4 layers), and helping out with taking care of all the chickens, etc. These neighbors I'll call R&G.
We have had some problems with dogs belonging to other neighbors, especially 'Rex' who belongs to the neighbor across the street. Large German Sheppard sized dog, not sure the breed. Generally a decent dog but he likes to get out of his fenced in yard. Rex's owner is called T.... (and dumbass)... T and R&G have had discussions before about Rex's getting into the chicken yard... I think he digs out of his fence and jumps over the chicken yard fence (new fence is in the works).
You can probably see what is coming...
I was in my office and my son mentions that he saw a chicken out the window in my backyard. I head outside to bring the chicken back to the chicken yard and hear a lot of chicken noise. I visit with the chickens 3-4 times a week and have learned what normal noise is. This is not it. I run over there to see with is happening. Most of the chickens are huddled in 1 area with the roosters and turkey out in front acting as a buffer. Some of the broilers have gotten themselves wedged into spaces to keep the dogs away... I said dogs....
I run back to the coop and see Rex with feathers in his mouth and a small dog. Rex sees me and the stick in my hand and run, the small dog is trapped and I chase it into the coop, it tries to growl at me as I grab for it so I smash it into the ground with my hand and grab it's collar. I am furious at this time.
I haul/drag the small dog out of the chicken yard and across the lawn to T's house. I heard a young woman calling for her dog and I screamed 'GET THE HELL OVER HERE I HAVE YOUR DOG'. I see her on the yard with Rex behind her, she's about 25 or so, dressed in sweats. I did not mean to scare her, but I went off on her screaming that her dogs had attacked the chickens and that if I caught any dog in there again that I or R&G would call the sheriff to put down the dogs or R or I would shoot them ourselves. Turns out she's renting a room from T and that the small is hers. She said her dog would not kill chickens and I yelled back that he was in the chicken coop chasing the chickens and that there were feathers all over and that if her dog was
seen/caught there it would suffer the same fate as Rex. She took her dog back and got Rex back into her yard. I went back to see what I could do for the chickens.
I counted and found 9 chickens missing, I ended up finding them all, wedged between walls and fence, under the coop, hidden in the bushes. I did not spend much time looking for injuries, R&G were on their way back from where they were.
Then my son mentioned someone was out in front, I went out and there was T. He was apologetic and sorry that Rex was out and causing problems and I insisted that we could have him taken away and the next time he could be shot. He said we could not and I insisted we could do that. T is in his late 20's. He said he'd beef up his fence to keep Rex in. he also told me that the young lady I had screamed at was back in her room crying. I'm not happy I upset her that badly, but she and T need to understand.
When R&G got home I explained that happened, and went back home. R&G soon showed up and explained that 2 chickens were injured, one had a bare patch of skin about the size of a dollar coin that had been stripped of feathers/skin and was bleeding, and the other had a patch about the size of a first that had been torn up. These were the 8 week old broilers and the 2nd bird looked bad. So R&G told me their idea, take the 2 injured chickens to T and tell him they were now his and he owed us $20/bird since that is the price these days on CL for chickens their age. They are within 4 weeks of being butchered.
So we put the birds in a clear plastic bin alive and went to see T. We explained that these 2 chickens were injured, one might survive, the other would not, and that he had just bought them. He was shocked, then asked what did he have to do? We told him that she should butcher them since they would get infections and die nastily. He asked "I just chop off their heads and pluck the feathers right?". R responded that he had to hang them, cut the heads off, let them drain out, then pluck them. I then
mentioned that he also had to gut them and remove the internal organs.
At this point, T said he was not a killer and could not do that, We said his dog was and that these birds were his now. He asked if he could pay for the the one that was really bad, and if the 2nd had to be put down he'd pay for that, but could we please take them and not leave them with him. We agreed to that, he paid us $20 for the soon to be dinner bird, and we went back to R's house.
The badly injured bird was butchered and found that it had a broken wing and internal bleeding, so it becomes soup. The other bird was treated with iodine and neosporin and setup in it's own cage for observation.
I heard yelling last night up at T's house and something about 'they will shoot them' and then the sounds of t-poles being hammered into the ground.
No comments:
Post a Comment