Bold Fox attack

[10sevol]

New member here.

I let my chickens have free reign during the day, and as such, I've lost more than a couple over time. Yesterday was a new one.

At 5:30pm, I'm working on my laptop in the house, and I hear a distress cluck from one of my hens. I ran outside, and literally 10 feet from my front door (it was quite the surprise to both of us) stands a giant red fox.....in plain day light eyeing two of my hens. They had retreated up the hill a little bit and were basically in a standoff when I appeared.

The fox scurried off, and I had no weapon with me at the time.

The fox his hit us before, but always at night. I couldn't believe it.

Past attempts to trap it have failed, and so I guess I'm reduced to hanging out in the evenings and see if shows back up.

I just thought it was unusual for such a brazen day attack, on my driveway, right in front of the front door.

 

[JackE]

The fox is a 24hr threat. They don't just come around at night. I lost 16 birds in two separate daylight attacks. The fox will take more than one. We are getting to that time of year when they'll have kits to take care of and feed, and that can be trouble for the chicken. I didn't have any luck with boxtraps, though I did thin out the coon population. The answer for me was electrified poultry net from Premier. I started out with 300', liked it so much I went and got 300' more.

 

[WiltonChickens]

A few weeks ago my son and I were out supervising the free range period for our flock. It was around 8:30am on a Saturday morning when my son spotted a fox sneaking up through the woods where some of the girls we scratching around. His yelling to me about it scared it away. So yes the are bold this time of year.

The only reason both of us were out there was because the hawks were starting to land and try to get into one of our 4 runs and love to stop by when the girls are out and about.

 

[ivan3]

A few weeks ago my son and I were out supervising the free range period for our flock. It was around 8:30am on a Saturday morning when my son spotted a fox sneaking up through the woods where some of the girls we scratching around. His yelling to me about it scared it away. So yes the are bold this time of year.

The only reason both of us were out there was because the hawks were starting to land and try to get into one of our 4 runs and love to stop by when the girls are out and about.

They will hunt in pairs in the Spring, and, yes, our chooks and turks are only `ranged' when we are out and have a .22 handy. They've never climbed our 6ft. welded wire fencing, but I did watch one (going full speed on the approach) clear a 5ft. panel gate, with a rabbit clamped in its mouth. A pair of Reds took 13 Silver Laced Wyandotte pullets from our closest neighbor's front yard in less than 15min, and left only a couple of feathers (around 15:30).

 

[gander007]

New member here.

I let my chickens have free reign during the day, and as such, I've lost more than a couple over time. Yesterday was a new one.

At 5:30pm, I'm working on my laptop in the house, and I hear a distress cluck from one of my hens. I ran outside, and literally 10 feet from my front door (it was quite the surprise to both of us) stands a giant red fox.....in plain day light eyeing two of my hens. They had retreated up the hill a little bit and were basically in a standoff when I appeared.

The fox scurried off, and I had no weapon with me at the time.

The fox his hit us before, but always at night. I couldn't believe it.

Past attempts to trap it have failed, and so I guess I'm reduced to hanging out in the evenings and see if shows back up.

I just thought it was unusual for such a brazen day attack, on my driveway, right in front of the front door.

I have gotten fox & bob-cat from my front porch and I just sit in the chair when I get them
it is so weird but my chickens also roost in my front yard but anyway the fox is still in the area
and I normally feed my chickens cooked short pieces of bacon and the funniest thing
is I normally put it out at night to cool off for the chickens to eat in the morning and some
how this attracts the fox and bob-cats .......

Now the bacon is also mixed in with the corn and other table scraps .....









gander007

 

[mitchyquaint]

I had a fox come at lunch time and massacre all my girls. Even just sat on the back wall whilst I screamed at it to get lost. It was completely brazen about the whole affair and did not care! Foxes like this worry me as I know we have a neighbour that feeds the fox so it's not bothered by humans!

 

[subhanalah]

I have gotten fox & bob-cat from my front porch and I just sit in the chair when I get them
it is so weird but my chickens also roost in my front yard but anyway the fox is still in the area
and I normally feed my chickens cooked short pieces of bacon  and the funniest thing
is I normally put it out at night to cool off for the chickens to eat in the morning and some
how this attracts the fox and bob-cats .......

Now the bacon is also mixed in with the corn and other table scraps .....









gander007  

predators noses are way better than ours. Bacon is a very smelly food, perhaps you can give it to the chickens in the morning so they can eat it immediately? Even mixing it with corn won't mask the smell of bacon.
What's the easiest way to wake up a man? The smell of bacon, imagine a hungry predator!

On that note, it probably makes an excellent fox trap bait.

 

[Cluckysnap123]

I don't want my chickens to be attacked, but when I was a kid, we had chickens too, and a fox took one. My dad was going to kill it, and he went to it's den and there were 2 cubs! He just couldn't do it. He couldn't kill them. He did, however, relocate them, and using live traps, relocated the parents as well.

 

[blucoondawg]

However relocating is illegal many areas and is not always good for the animals

 

[gander007]

I had a fox come at lunch time and massacre all my girls. Even just sat on the back wall whilst I screamed at it to get lost. It was completely brazen about the whole affair and did not care! Foxes like this worry me as I know we have a neighbour that feeds the fox so it's not bothered by humans!

You might want to get a hold of animal control not that they can do anything
but can steer you in the right direction