Ami: 1
Chicken: 0

I've chased that chicken (rooster?) away a few times in the past week or two. Last time, I let Z'ev chase him, hoping he'd get scared and not come back. Well...back he came and he met his nemesis. Damn...I warned them about the dogs and chickens in our yard. She said, not a problem, the birds can fly...

Damn.

Anyone who thinks a chicken can out-fly the prey drive of a dog is sadly mistaken for sure.

Ugh, I hate when an animal dies like this, it's nature though. I always let Mishka chase bunnies on our walks, it's so fun for her, and I know with me around, she won't get one. But when Kohdi killed the bunny that dared come in my "rabbit proofed " yard (apparently it was rabbit proofed so the bunny couldn't get back out) and he and Mishka played tug of war with it, it really broke my heart.

I was debating whether I was going to reply to this or not since my view is almost the opposite of most of you all.

Remember I live in the desert southwest, I don't have to worry about a neighbors chickens since very few people want to put up with the hassle of trying to make a chicken coop coyote proof.

The first husky I had when I moved out here (Misty) would regularly hunt and she'd bring her catch home (I'm presuming so she didn't have to protect it against the coyotes) and lay out back and 'have lunch.'  To me that was very natural and never brought up any "oh, you shouldn't do that" feelings.

Avalanche will chase the rabbits - but to my knowledge, he's never caught one - to him it seems more a "let's chase the bunny" type play.

It doesn't bother me at all when one of my dogs kills something that shouldn't be there in the first place.  Our wild and feral animals generally know enough to stay away from being someone's "lunch."

@amymeme - well, good for her! (Ami, of course) My response down here to a neighbor who had chickens (about a mile away) is that if one of my dogs come up here and bothers your chickens, I'd appreciate a gun shot over the dog; if that doesn't work, then do what you have to do.  Don't get me wrong, I don't want to see any of my dogs hurt, but if it's raiding domestic animals then it's way out of bounds anyway.  
My response to your neighbor would have been something like "If my dogs kill any of your chickens on your property I'll gladly pay for them, however if my dogs kill any of your chickens on my property 'sorry 'bout that'"

@artic_wind contrary to my previous thoughts, if one of the dogs had set down to eat the rabbit, I'd not have said a thing - but a bunny, dead or alive is not a toy, I'd have interrupted quickly.

Mine occasionally kill a rabbit, possum or armadillo that manages to get into their outdoor enclosure. Once a stray cat made the fatal mistake.

Since mine are wolf hybrids, I have to have a double fence. The outer fence also has hot wire on the outside at 4 levels to keep things out. If a critter is fool enough to get in there despite all of the fencing, then so be it, let the canines do what they naturally do - it's their snack. (State law requires the double fence, I added the hot wire because I live in a rural area where people tend to dump unwanted pets.)

@aljones [quote/]@artic_wind contrary to my previous thoughts, if one of the dogs had set down to eat the rabbit, I'd not have said a thing - but a bunny, dead or alive is not a toy, I'd have interrupted quickly.[/quote]

It was stopped as quickly as it happened. You think I would just let them tear a live animal apart? The bunny was still "alive" when I told them to drop it, it died shortly thereafter. I doubt even an entire minute passed between catching it and its death.

Ami catches all sorts of things...usually I just roll my eyes and glad I worm him routinely.

The chicken only bothers me 'cause I like my neighbors, they are the salt of the earth and good people.  I'd like to stay on good terms with them.  Ami is reliably contained and tbd problem only occurs when chickens come over here.  I've warned her, nothing more I can do except quietly dispose of the remains and let the disappearance be some unknown predator (we have lots of coyote, fox, raccoons and hawks.)

@artic_wind difference of opinion. I'd let my dogs, to use your words, "tear a live animal apart" that's just a part of the natural world we live in. If they kill and eat then I don't have any problem with that, kill just to kill - now that I have a problem with. Many of us humans, I think too many, have reached a point where they couldn't kill and gut an animal if their life, literally depended on it.

Our pups aren't that many generations removed from the time when they lived "wild and free" in Siberia where, I imagine, most hunted for a lot of their food, hence the prey drive <??>.

@alijones I agree as long as they eat what they kill, no problem, that's their nature. Now if one ever takes to killing for fun, that's another matter.

I am a hunter, I also fish and, I eat what I kill (in season, legal of course.) and, I eat the fish I catch. I maintain a garden, can and freeze my own food, make jerky, sausage, etc...

My dogs eat a prey model wild diet that changes with the seasons and a small supplement of kibble. (to be sure they will eat kibble when traveling makes raw difficult or impossible to feed.) Four wolfdogs, two humans and, the grocery store bill is 50 USD per week. The rest is all hunted, fished or home grown.

Fortunately here, there is something legal to hunt year around, even if that's only wild hogs which are considered a nuisance animal here and thus, legal to hunt any time of year. So in the summer, it's pork and fish with a little canned or frozen venison, rabbit, turkey and squirrel (if I have any left from last season.

We have fruit trees and vines and, a garden so produce is plentiful all summer. More produce in the summer, more meat in the winter, natural, seasonal, local and, inexpensive - best diet there is in my opinion.

I know people that couldn't hunt and dress an animal if their life depended on it - they would starve to death or, beg me for food since I killed and butchered the animal. I hear people whine about not being able to afford food, especially meat. Hmm, 5.00/lb for cheaper cuts for them or about 1.00 for 80 to 100 lbs of meat for me. I like my cost better.

@aljones I guess I'm just not getting it. It sounds like you are telling me my dogs killed the bunny for the fun of it? Or are you suggesting I shouldn't have stopped it? Either scenario I wouldn't agree with you, and find it hard to believe you got that from something described as lasting, from start to finish, less than one minute.

Kohdi saw a bunny come through the fence in the canyon and into the yard, he did what comes naturally to Huskies, he chased it and caught it. Mishka, wasn't involved until she heard it (neither of us saw it, Kohdi was up on the grass one minute, down in the canyon the next) so she went down there. All I saw in the few seconds it took me to get up and get over there to see what they were going after, was Kohdi holding the bunny and Mishka trying to take it, and Kohdi not wanting to let it go so yeah, a tug of war with it. I yelled to drop it, which Kohdi did immediately, but Mishka doing on my second "drop it" I went down there, the bunny did some flopping around and then laid still. My dogs are well fed, a quality food that is not always easy for me to afford, but I do it because I believe it's healthier for them and avoids the large vet bills later on (before changing their food, Mishka was already requiring vet visits in her short life more than any of my dogs in their whole life span) so as "popular" as a raw diet is for Huskies, I wasn't about to let them eat a wild animal. I have a friend with a snake, who buys it's live meals. He would never feed it a trapped mouse or whatever from home, for example, the reason being that there is no way of telling where that mouse may have been, it's integrity has been compromised by what it may have eaten in the past, its living conditions, and any rodenticides it may have been in contact with, etc. For me, that same thinking would be applied to any wild animal, that being any animal not being raised to be a meal in the future, and why Kohdi and Mishka will never be eating something they kill if I have any control over it. As far as thinking they killed for the fun of it, really?

I did not say that, I didn't even really imply it. Read what you want into what I wrote, I'm done.

Al, if you put "@arctic_wind" in front of a comment/post, I'm, of course, going to think you directed your comment to me, and what I said. Why would I think otherwise.

Jimmy, in the first place, what I wrote was my opinion on how I would have handled (or rather NOT handled) the situation you found yourself in. Secondly, it seems as if you're begging for an argument that you're not going to get.

As I said on my last post, I'm done with this.

Although I don't always word myself well, Al, I'm confident nothing I posted was "begging for an argument". Glad you are done with this now.

@Amy, sorry such an innocent thread like this, turned out the way it did. I apologize for anything I posted that may have been misunderstood by others. I neither wanted an argument, nor foresaw anything I posted becoming an argument.

All arguing aside on what has been done by others in the past that is long over and unable to go back and change........

If a wild animal is caught by a dog in the future and killed and you don't want to see it go to waste you can freeze it for the 3 weeks and then feed it if it is a leaf eater. Rabbits, squirrels, birds, deer, chickens and ducks, etc. I personally will feed Raccoon and wild hog but I do cook it for safety. Kenzi maimed a rabbit the other night that was getting in my garden. Due to aging teeth she didn't get it killed right away. I finished it off and threw it in the freezer. In another couple weeks it will go in their dinner bowls. I pick up road kill all the time if I can get it found fast enough. Right now it's too hot. Unless you see it hit yourself you about can't get it caught fast enough. This allows me to feed raw on a budget, but can also allow people whose dogs catch something you don't want to go to waste but might not want to necessarily allow them to eat right away for buggy purposes.

That is really good information, thank you. The bunny actually didn't go to waste, I had carried it down into the unfenced area of the canyon hoping coyotes or the many large birds around here would find it. I took the dogs for their walk an when we came back a little over an hour later, the bunny was gone. So something made a meal out of it, just wasn't my dogs.

I agree, I won't feed found in the woods dead animals, herbivores yes, raw, immediately except rabbits in the summer, they tend to have loads of fleas and, sometimes ring worm. Wild hogs, only after I cut them open and check the liver, if it's clean and, there are no worms in the muscle tissue, I feed it raw - worms or bad liver, it goes well away form the house for scavengers like coyotes and vultures. Fish, whole, fresh caught.

Rabbits get skinned and frozen in the summer, the skin gets discarded.

At the risk of sounding like I'm looking for an argument, which I'm not I, personally, would still not let my dogs eat a bunny they caught here. I do think a bunny from an area in which I live, suburbia basically, is different than a bunny (or any leaf eating animal) in an area in which many members here live, which is more a rural setting. The same little bunnies I see hopping around on all the lawns out front, are the same little bunnies that hop their little selves back into the canyon when the sun comes up. This means they're eating grass loaded with fertilizers, herbicides, etc. I have to replace my own little grass area in my backyard pretty much yearly because I feel my dogs shouldn't be exposed to chemicals like fertilizers as much as they would if their grass was fertilized. Soils here are not great so fertilizers are necessary. Most every house in my neighborhood is taken care of by hired gardeners who use fertilizers, and things like Round-Up routinely. No one thinks much of it, but many of these chemicals are dangerous.

My thinking might be overthinking, it's not like they kill something on a regular basis, Just offering a different point of view for others reading this thread who don't live in rural/semi-rural settings.

@ Artic_Wind. I agree wit you 100%. If I lived in suburbia, my dogs would not be eating wild rabbits. squirrels or anything else that roamed and ate the chemically treated lawns and plants there.

Out here, we use cow and horse manure for fertilizer and vinegar saturated with salt (as much as will dissolve in a quantity of vinegar) for weed killer on fence lines. As close to chemicals as we get is spraying the fruit trees with diluted dawn dish soap for tree mites.

The wild critters here are eating out in the "bottoms" and along the river, not in peoples manicured yards and chemically fertilized gardens - the few neighbors I have, like me, take steps such as fencing, deterrent plants and, hot wire to keep rabbits, deer and such out of our gardens and flowers. They might graze on our lawns now and then but, we don't even water those, save what bleeds over form the garden - no need to around here. These lawns aren't planted or sod, just the natural grass the grows when you clear the trees and keep the weeds out of it.

The only real wild food hazard here is muscadines - wild grapes and, of course they are sweet and, dogs will eat them. Peroxide and charcoal are a must if we go out in the woods off leash in the summer.

Bluemoods...question re your salt vinegar weed killer. I have an electric bear fence around my apiary/vegetable garden, buried in the woods with a 3' clearing along the fence. I'm having a wicked time keeping that path clear. Most of it is the brush we cleared trying to come back. Roundup is not cutting it. I wouldn't use that mix anywhere else because I want other things to grow. Thoughts?

I'd try salt and vinegar, it takes about 5 cups of salt per gallon. I just mix it as best I can, cap it and let it sit for a couple of hours then, stir again before adding it to my sprayer. It takes 3-5 days to kill weeds and, you need to make sure it won't rain for 24 hours after applying. It lasts about 5-6 weeks. Unless plants can live in a very acidic salt marsh, which 99% of dry land weeds can't, they are dead.

Most animals dislike the smell of vinegar so, won't bother the area while it's wet, once it's dry, the salt residue on the dead leaves isn't going to harm animals any more than going to the beach would. Just use plain, no iodized salt since iodine can be toxic in too high a dose, especially to smaller animals like fish and some birds.

If you have a snail or slug problem, use leftover coffee to spray them or, put used coffee grounds around the problem areas - the caffeine isn't enough to harm larger critters but, it's enough to give the little snails and slugs a heart attack.

@bluemoods thank you! My father lives about 25 minutes from me in a rural area, growing up we would be there on the weekends and helping with the horse and cow manure, it's a whole other way of life over there, that's how he likes it and why he moved there. He grows HUGE vegetable gardens, has cows and horses, goats, pigs and chickens, etc. it's an awesome way of life.

I'm going to have to try out your weed killer recipe. I've never heard of muscadines before! If Mishka lived where you are, I'd be sure to have to have charcoal and peroxide handy. I have to watch her with things like berries like a hawk.

Down here, Muscadine wine is a big thing and, yes I make wine out of the wild muscadines - they are thick skinned grapes and, have as much or more tannin than domestic grapes.

As for other berries, the dogs do eat blackberries since there is a wild bramble along one side of their pen and, a few go grow into the pen every summer and, they have learned to wait for them to get ripe before plucking and eating them.

With the garden, pumpkin is a part of their diet, as is spinach and, since my in laws grow hay, fresh or frozen alfalfa tender greens (young, well before it would be hay.) I can't always get the digestive contents of ruminants for them so, except in the fall, when it's hunting and, cattle butchering season, I have to make a substitute for that.

We have Poke weed here too (American Nightshade and very toxic) but, animals won't go near the stuff, the smell alone warns them it's dangerous.

Of course the usual problems of thistles and sand spurs (goat head stickers), stick tights and, sweet gum tree balls (spiny seed pods that fall from sweet gum trees and mat in fluffy tails horribly all abound here.

Wild thing I hope my dogs never tangle with are rattles snakes, cotton mouths, copperheads and, alligators. Fish and game claims there are no mountain lions here but, I've seen one as have most outdoors type people here.

Of course we have coyotes, feral hogs, wild turkey, ducks, geese, rodents of all varieties and more biting insects and arachnids than humans can count. LOL (Native tarantulas live in my hedgerow and, the night is alive with frogs, toads, crickets and fireflies.)

Ah ha ha, I clicked on this thread because I thought it was going to be about Feeding Raw

Well, I have read that historically, huskies pulled sleds for the Chukchi people during the winter, and then in the summer months they were set free to range and hunt for themselves. Through the thousands of years, their prey drive and hunting ability has not been bred out of them (as in other dog breeds). So...they are good hunters!

Your neighbor should know that a chicken (even a flying chicken) is going to be no challenge for a husky!

I would feel bad too! I worry that Rumo is going to get one of the roaming cats in our neighborhood. It's hard to tell the "owned pet" from the "stray feral" cats at a distance. So far our fence seems to have kept them out of our yard... I don't know what I would do if I found a dead half-eaten kitty...I actually think it would give me nightmares!  (I used to have a pet cat before I married my cat-allergic husband...).

I have found just that in with my wolf/husky hybrids. They are friendly with my three barn cats but, any other cat gets into their pen when they are out ( it's only happened once and, it was a stray) is a goner.

Most cats are smart enough to avoid the big canines but, if one isn't and gets trough the double fence I have for them, oh well. No it isn't pleasant and, I'd rather it didn't happen but, the whole purpose of the pen is so that they have room to run and relax when I can't be home to supervise them in the house so, if a cat gets in there, it's going to be when I'm not home, or when I have too many guests to have them in the house. (That's only on Thanksgiving Day.)