Dog Attack

I woke up this morning to Brad grabbing the gun and yelling at me to go outside "NOW". I walked out to see a huge dog standing in my turkey coop surrounded by carnage. I've caught the dog in the yard a couple of times in the last week. Usually as it was being chased out of the yard by my dogs. I was hoping that it was a friendly dog, or that it wouldn't come back. Apparently, I was wrong. Who knows how long the dog had been in the coop. My dogs were inside for the night. It was in there long enough to do a lot of damage. When I ran out there yelling at the dog, it stopped. It sat down and waited for me to let it out of the coop. We couldn't shoot a dog that listened when I fussed at it. I got her out of the turkey coop and tied her in the front yard and then went back to survey the damage. The dog had climed up the side of the coop and busted through the bird netting at the top. There was a hole in the other side of the coop where some of the turkeys had gotten out.

One turkey was killed and half eaten (RT). Three others (yellow, tawny, and chester) were in really bad shape. The remaining three (tabby, tallow, and tom) were MIA. I grabbed a pot of warm water and the vetericyn and tried to get the three injured turkeys cleaned up. Chester and Tawny were shaking and visibly in severe pain. Yellow was not quite as bad but it still wasn't looking good. To add insult to injury, we only had 2 bullets. They have been nearly impossible to buy recently. Brad went to Walmart in hope that they had some, which they didn't. We had to call all over the neighborhood just to find ammunition to put my turkeys out of their misery.

I went to pick the borrowed ammo up. While I was gone, Brad found Tallow. She was walking around the very back section of the property. She was obviously fearful, but she let me slowly approach her and look her over. She is banged up, but not as badly as the other turkeys. After a few minutes I convinced her to let me pick her up and carry her back to the coop. I looked chester and tawny over once more just to make sure that they were beyond help. I have a hard time convincing myself to put anything out of its misery. I like to give everything a fighting chance instead of deciding that it is beyond help. Chickens and turkeys don't show when they are sick or in pain until they are on death's doorstep. It is a defense mechanism. They don't want to show weakness because they don't want to be picked off by predators. These turkeys were obviously in a lot of pain. They had deep gashes and were missing skin over large areas. The chances that they would survive was not good, and it would be impossible to keep them from getting an infection in wounds that large and deep. After many tears and reasoning with myself, Brad put them down.

I called the police and made out a report. The police officer was very nice and understanding. Apparently he had ducks that had suffered a similar fate. He had to put all of them down. After talking for a while and showing him the damage, he went over to the neighbor's (suspected dog owners) house to talk to them but nobody was home. I assumed that the dog belonged to the same man whose dog killed my turkeys last November because it looked a lot like that dog and appears to be about the right age to have been a puppy right around that time. She is huge, but young. Nobody was home. The police officer told me to hold onto the dog and he would check back in with me before the end of the day.

After he left and the police report was made I took Brad to work. He had already missed half of the day by that point. I went to the feed store and talked to a wonderful women there that is also a vet tech. She helped me find an antibiotic that will hopefully work on the turkeys. I bought them some injectable Penicillin. I gave each of them a shot of 1/2cc into their breast and they will need it every day for the next 7 days. I'm hoping that it will help Yellow and Tallow to fight off the infection and heal. I'm going to be keeping vetericyn on the wounds. They are obviously still very sore, but I hope they will make it. I moved them both from the big hoop coop, to one of the hoop chicken tractors. It is smaller, but they need to be resting. I also wanted to get them on clean grass. I can move them every day this way and it will be more sanitary.

This evening the police officer gave me a call and let me know that he was back at the neighbor's house, but there was still nobody home. He went to the next house over and talked to the people that lived there. They are Hispanic and speak very little english. Apparently, the woman acted like it was actually her and her husband's dog. Not the neighbor that I had though she belonged to. The police officer explained the situation the best he could to her and said he would be back over here in the morning to take pictures of the dog to give them to make sure it was the right dog. He told them that there would be damages that they have to pay. It won't replace my sweet turkey-heads.

I was holding out the hope that maybe when it started to get dark tabby and tom would come back. They didn't. I know that they were probably pretty badly injured by the time they managed to escape. They probably went off somewhere and died. All of my bourbon reds are gone. My 2 blues are in bad shape but I'm hoping that they pull through. Most of Tallow's eggs got smashed in the struggle. I'm assuming that the rest are scrambled. She needs to heal herself before she hatches any eggs anyway. Thankfully I still have some of their sweet babies. I was disappointed because I hadn't sold all of them. It it late in the season for people to be wanting turkey poults. I'm so thankful to have them now. They won't replace their parents but I hope that they will have a lot of their traits. I got so attached to my turkeys over the last year. They were more like pets than anything. It breaks my heart to have lost them and most of all that they had to suffer like they did.

I will spare you the gruesome pics of today and instead share the way that I will try to remember them.  The way Chester would strut for me and then look up at me with those big beautiful brown eyes to make sure that I saw how handsome he was. The way they would move like a school of fish around the yard, following my every move. How sweet, funny, and curious they all were. I will miss my sweet turkey-heads dearly. It has been a really rough day.