My dad and sisters bf ( he just got back from iraq) are staking out tonight with quiet a few rifles... lets hope they get them..
and i know by killing these 2 we wont get rid of our problem.
right now we are trying to find a good shed to redo into a coop for our chickens cause once the chick are grown there wont be room, but we have a 12 X 8 pen 6 feet tall mesh with chicken wire over top and 2 layers of wire under the bottom that wraps 3 feet up the wall.
we have never had anything in the coop every attack we have had is if the chickens are out or the coop door was left open after feeding.
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I have seen a pair of red fox hunt and kill a cat it is the exception not the rule here much more like for yotes to kill cats and small dogs here it is almost how I figure out what I am trying to catch when I hear that small dogs are missing I am just about sure I am looking for coyotes instead of fox the fox here are much more inclined to eat small rodents muskrat ,rabbit rats mice squirrels etc this time of the year they are still eating lots of fruit it is plentiful down this way
I am sorry I came down hard about the protection, I guess I had gotten the impression the birds were free-ranging all day near a game preserve. My error entirely. You have been proactive about protection and are continuing to improve the situation. I applaud you.
We all wish you luck with your hunt! Have a great Fox Season!
I don't think fox generally run in packs, per say, but kits will hang with vixens for awhile until they are ready to go claim their own territory, so seeing 2-3 foxes (rarely more) in a group isn't unheard of.
Also, fox are opportunists. If the food is available during daylight, they're there. If it's available at night, they'll do that, too. They'll arrange their schedule to fit the food and that's about the only guarantee you'll get when it comes to their prowling. We had a vixen run through our yard about 20 yards away from us while we were installing our electric fence on our run at about 2:00PM one afternoon....hence why we went with some electric fence.
Righto - the parents may hunt together to take prey back to their kits. Worse yet, they may use captured prey to teach the vixen how to hunt themselves.
YES it is quite unusal for them to be out in the daylight, but not so much during baby-rearing season. The parents work together. Foxhunters often run a pair because they both lead the hounds away from the vixen.
Foxes are not so bold in our country (foxhunting territory), but perhaps they are not so hungry. If foxes acted like that where I am, rabies would be suspected.
We also have foxhunters in our area that feed the foxes to keep them in hunting territory and away from farms, but really, there is an abundance of natural fox food in our area.
Oh - and we are in foxhunting season in Virginia, so this is the active time for our foxes - big reds imported from England in the 1930s that are not native to America.