Chicken: 1, Fox: 0

[AppleMomma65]

Chickens free ranging, havin’ a good ‘ol time scratching, eating bugs, etc. I left the yard for less than 2 minutes and in that short time a sly fox got one. Didn’t hear or see a thing but came back - less than 2 minutes later - to a pile of MY FAVORITE CHICKEN’S FEATHERS!!! No blood or gut trail. I was heartbroken thinking that she was dragged off to her death. I looked all over for her, trekking through tic infested grass, calling “Chick chick chick “ but to no avail.

Except …

Ten minutes later, as I’m sitting on my deck — crying, feeling so bad, not necessarily about loosing a chicken because these are the risks you take when they free range, but more for the terror she had being attacked — here comes my little lady, head held high like “Hey y’all, what’s goin on?” except she’s missing all of her tail feathers and has a deep 1/2” gash by her vent. I washed with soap and covered it in Bacitracin. She got extra treats and sat comfortably on my lap during happy hour.

She’s gonna be fine. After all, they are tiny dinosaurs…

The fox? Sorry, but its days are numbered…

 

[cherrynberry]

Chickens free ranging, havin’ a good ‘ol time scratching, eating bugs, etc. I left the yard for less than 2 minutes and in that short time a sly fox got one. Didn’t hear or see a thing but came back - less than 2 minutes later - to a pile of MY FAVORITE CHICKEN’S FEATHERS!!! No blood or gut trail. I was heartbroken thinking that she was dragged off to her death. I looked all over for her, trekking through tic infested grass, calling “Chick chick chick “ but to no avail.

Except …

Ten minutes later, as I’m sitting on my deck — crying, feeling so bad, not necessarily about loosing a chicken because these are the risks you take when they free range, but more for the terror she had being attacked — here comes my little lady, head held high like “Hey y’all, what’s goin on?” except she’s missing all of her tail feathers and has a deep 1/2” gash by her vent. I washed with soap and covered it in Bacitracin. She got extra treats and sat comfortably on my lap during happy hour.

She’s gonna be fine. After all, they are tiny dinosaurs…

The fox? Sorry, but its days are numbered…

What a survivor! She looks practically okay!

 

[Goosebaby]

Glad to she she got away!

Years ago we had a mountain lion living in our area, we think it was a female because my brother while hiking found what looked like a den that had been in use recently. Some nights we’d hear territorial calling too.

She was shy, she was only spotted a few times by people in our area. She must have been a smart one too, she kept to herself and kept to hunting wildlife because there weren’t really any reports of losses from the various rural farmers and backyard poultry owners in my area, up until one year a few goats went missing and people of course assumed it was to the cat.
After that she disappeared, there’s been a few rumors that she was shot down by the river by one of my neighbors but no one’s actually admitted anything ever, but no ones seen or heard a cat in years.

A month after her presumed death the coyote apocalypse began, we had either one massive pack or several small ones roaming the area killing housecats, dogs, all of that one neighbor’s goats, most of the chickens in the area, and a few of my geese and one of my drakes.
It was a specific individual that took my birds, took them on different occasions moments after I’d stepped inside from watching them, in other words it was watching my yard waiting. It actually cornered my mom and our cat on a different occasion but was chased off by our two dogs. It didn’t seem to have any real fear of humans. After that I’ve made sure that my dogs are always out when the birds are out, they’re never unattended.
I think that specific coyote was finally shot by my neighbor, and the others eventually disappeared, probably the same way, which I don’t have any issue with, they were problem animals, they weren’t living a natural life and were praying on people’s animals and livestock, and it was only a matter of time before someone got attacked considering how bold the one had become.

I’ll always wonder if that one mountain lion kept them away, if removing her upset the balance, or maybe they were the ones who killed/drove her off? She may have bagged those goats but in hindsite it also could have been the coyotes.

Point is if you see a predator in broad daylight in you yard or it tries for one of your animals the second you took your eyes off them, it has to go.