I came home for dinner tonight and went to shut the coop door. I checked inside to make sure all the girls were tucked in and to gather any eggs before they froze overnight. Then on my way back to the house, I noticed my favorite Australorp laying in the snow. The mystery neighborhood dog strikes again...
I'm not sad so much as I'm pissed off. I like my chickens, but I never named them, and I don't really consider them pets. But... I don't really like them being killed by a roving dog, either. I want my hens to be able to free range, but that doesn't seem to be an option right now. Maybe some kind of fence is in order.
I was able to get the breast meat off of the hen. I wasn't sure how I would feel about doing it myself, since with the last hen I had just watched my friend do it. But it wasn't a big deal, or difficult to do. I don't know that I could kill my own birds, but at least once they're dead, I can take care of business. I guess I can add that to my list of ever-growing homesteading skills. It's an unfortunate thing to have to do, but I am grateful that I can have a bit of meat out of the deal. At least her death wasn't completely in vain...
2 comments:
That's unfortunate. Isn't is strange that a dog would kill a hen?
I think the dog just thinks the hens are toys. A friend of mine had the same problem with his dog. Once it catches them, it doesn't eat them, just tosses them around a bit. Which I suppose is good for me, since I can still use the meat...
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