ex and I lived in Colorado for a few years, had a mini ranch, goats, horses, chickens etc..
one morning while feeding the live stock I notice we seem to be missing a few chickens,,
3 or 4,
I begin looking for them, kept them free range and they tended to nest and leave eggs where we couldnt find them, of course the main reason to have chickens..so it wasnt uncommon for one or two to be off somewhere..
so I find 2 ripped up carcasses out by the fence line,,the barn was a good distance from the house, and we never heard a thing
As it was rapidly approaching KID season for my goats and I could not have foxes or coyotes taking out the cash crop guess i had to do something..
that night I put the childran to bed, kissed the wife, bundled up and went and sat in the feed room with my 12 ga and 45.
around 1am the chickens begin a rucus,,
'I go into the coop.
and there are 2 dogs in there cornering a bird..
they see me and out the small door they go,,
I follow behind through the bigger door and there are 5 BIG damn dogs in the yard...I open up with my 12 and took out 2, the others scattered. shotgun jamed, (actually it broke) dropped it and followed up with the .45 and killed another on the fly and belive i hit the 4th, blood spoor the next morning.....
4 got away, never to be seen again. neighbors of course started calling woke up the wife, kids, all hell broke loose yada yada,,2 of the neighbors, said they had the same problem and had called the sheriff to take care of them,,,of course they didnt..not thier job but all were amazed they were dogs
we had foxes and coyotes in the area, figured they would be the only problem.
2 of the dead had collars, grown into the skin of their throats, obvious runaways that out grew thier collars...it was sad
of course I had to explain to 3 little boys why Daddy was shooting dogs...and were concerned I was going to shoot thiers too....