JoceAndChris
Member
- Messages
- 6,606
- Location
- Lincolnshire
I have lost three fluffs this week, an outrageously pretty Blue Orpington girl from show stock and two lovely Light Sussex pullets just coming into lay. Although I am often very nasty about Mr Fox, I'd have preferred him to have them - his workmanship is usually gory but swift. Doggy carried the birds around the garden, then flung them into the hedge, leaving them with very little skin and huge gaping wounds. I had one euthanazed as soon as possible, the others I tried to nurse but after 24 hours they died in great agony as I was driving them to the vet's. The hardest thing was that during the attack, which took place by my porch, I was screaming at the dog and trying to catch it but was completely ineffectual. What do you do? Can you make it stop? The owner was ten minutes behind his off the lead dog. He came round the garden with me when he finally caught up and saw the various seas of strewn feathers, but he didn't really see the full horror of the wounds and deaths, and my agony as I tried to figure out how to clean and dress a 6 inch infected hole whilst she was having a heart attack in my hands. Anyway I've written to him and asked him to compensate the loss of the birds, and the vet's euthanasia fee, which comes to just under £100, so we'll see what happens about that, but money is no compensation for the nightmare of the last two days.
I'm giving myself a severe beating over this as many poultry keepers think it's your duty to pen them in. I'm perhaps too idealistic, and want to free range my 30 or so birds in the garden, and then be with them at dusk shutting them safely away. I'm forced to admit that safely free-ranging 30 hens when you are surrounded on all sides by dog-walkers is cloud-cuckoo land. But, for now, I have these birds wandering about and I have to do what I can to stop dogs getting in.
When the owner saw this gate he said the dog could have just jumped over it - what do you think?
How can I make it more dog proof? Am I going to have to accept that this lovely old gate, which might be original to the property, isn't doing the job? How can I wire it so that little dogs can't just pop through? I've tried winding with thin wire around the bottom rails but that has now all come adrift as my cat just barges through the wire for his nightly round.
This is just one point of entry; there are many.
I'm giving myself a severe beating over this as many poultry keepers think it's your duty to pen them in. I'm perhaps too idealistic, and want to free range my 30 or so birds in the garden, and then be with them at dusk shutting them safely away. I'm forced to admit that safely free-ranging 30 hens when you are surrounded on all sides by dog-walkers is cloud-cuckoo land. But, for now, I have these birds wandering about and I have to do what I can to stop dogs getting in.
When the owner saw this gate he said the dog could have just jumped over it - what do you think?
How can I make it more dog proof? Am I going to have to accept that this lovely old gate, which might be original to the property, isn't doing the job? How can I wire it so that little dogs can't just pop through? I've tried winding with thin wire around the bottom rails but that has now all come adrift as my cat just barges through the wire for his nightly round.
This is just one point of entry; there are many.