Chicken Massacre

I arrived home on Thursday to find a note in our mailbox from our neighbor. It said her dog had gotten in the backyard again and killed a chicken. I went to the back expecting to find one dead chicken that had most likely escaped but instead I found a complete massacre. There were feathers and dead chickens everywhere in their pen. Out of nine chickens, there were only three alive and one only barely.

I started cleaning up when the neighbor came out. She was very apologetic but when I told her how many had been killed she was completely confused. She had grabbed her dogs almost immediately and found only one dead chicken, the one that had been escaping the pen lately. She said all the rest were still alive and the dogs were still outside of the pen wanting to get in but hadn't. So that leaves the mystery of what happened after. Either the same dogs returned or another dog came in got in the same way. Whichever animal it was had broken through the fenced chicken area at a weak spot that was temporary and not well built. From there it was like a fox in a hen house.

There was a lot of outrage among some friends regarding the neighbor's dogs. I can't blame her or them too much, though. I had made a hole in our fence and failed to patch it, even after she commented on it. And I think it's in a dog's nature to go after chickens so I don't feel that they're especially violent and to be concerned about otherwise. I would just like to solve the mystery of the second attacker.

Butter, the only untouched survivor. I'm not sure how she escaped injury but besides a bit of shock she's doing well and even laid an egg today.

Half and Half has one bite wound that doesn't look too bad but it also seems she has a broken leg. Hopefully she'll pull through, otherwise Butter is going to be one lonely chicken.

The third one that had survived, Winky our zombie chicken, didn't make it through the night. The rest: DOA.