Dealing with a fox... :/

[77horses]

Ever since I started raising chickens, I've never really had a major problem with predators. Really, the only predators that have been a problem are weasels and hawks. A few years ago a weasel killed some of our chickens, but hasn't been a problem since then. And there are hawks around but I've never lost any chickens to them.
Well, unfortunately, that recently changed (last weekend, to be exact). All 5 of my neighbor's chickens were roaming on my lawn (they free range all the time and sometimes like to cross the road and come over to my yard to visit

) when a fox came out of the woods and attacked them, killing them all.

Thankfully, my chickens weren't out at the time that it happened, but I do feel bad for my neighbors, because they have a younger daughter who helped raise their chickens from baby chicks and they really cared about them.

Also, after the fox attack, we moved my chickens from their old coop (which needs repairing) to a newer coop, which is safer because it's surrounded by a 6-foot tall metal fence (which we used to use as a dog kennel). And it couldn't have been at a better time, because soon after that, something (probably the fox) chewed through the door and got into the old coop that they had been in.

So now that I know there's a fox roaming around, I'm really concerned about my own chickens' safety. I usually let them free range all day, but now I'm not so sure that's a good idea.

For now, the coop they're in seems safe enough with the tall metal fence around it (and the fence also has mesh wire that goes a little ways underground to discourage anything from digging under it), but what else can I do? I've never had to deal with a fox before and I've heard that they're a pain to get rid of.
Any suggestions are appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[Judy]

Yeah, they're a pain. I've managed to trap a couple and shoot one. They are very wary of traps and may not go near one if there is human odor on it. What finally resolved the problem here was a couple of dogs started chasing all such predators off.

 

[77horses]

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Yeah, we have two dogs; a mini dachshund and a boxer/lab mix. I only let the chickens free range now if the dogs are outside with them.

 

[aprophet]

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I trap and dispatch them they are not that hard to catch a hole with bait in it and a trap set in front of the hole is what work well here my traps are fairly cheap to feed an do not care if the electrickery goes off LOL

 

[Just_Ducky]

Contrary to popular belief, foxes typically don't kill chickens. Dogs are honestly a much more likely culprit. Foxes tend to avoid interaction with humans (and by extension their livestock) as a matter of course. Dogs, on the other hand, lack the fox's rather profound wariness of the scent of humans. If a fox were to kill a chicken, it would most likely whisk its prey away to someplace it would feel safe eating it. (In other words, if a fox killed a chicken it would be quite unusual for it to stick around and kill a few more.) Dogs, however, were studied in conjunction with wolves in the 1970's by Erik Zimen (a biologist in the field of comparative behavioral research) and he found that while a wolf kills its prey quickly and then knows exactly how to go about eating it, often times a dog will kill and then be completely unsure as to what he should do next. Seeing a fox in the area does not mean that the fox was responsible for the untimely demise of your neighbor's poultry.

That said, the most effective way to ward off a fox is to walk your property with your dogs at random times (random is impostant! the fox will learn the pattern if you follow one). Have the dogs mark the area. Additionally, you can leave smelly human stuff (sweat socks and the like) near your chicken coup.

 

[Moonkit]

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That's all well and good.. but the original poster seemed to indicate that she saw the fox come and kill the neighbor's chickens.

 

[77horses]

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That's all well and good.. but the original poster seemed to indicate that she saw the fox come and kill the neighbor's chickens.

I didn't see the attack, but my neighbor's did, and we are positive that it was a fox.

 

[Just_Ducky]

Quote:
So you honestly believe the OP stood by doing nothing while (s)he watched the fox come out of the woods and run around killing chicken after chicken in his/her own yard? What the OP actually said was "All 5 of my neighbor's chickens were roaming on my lawn when a fox came out of the woods and attacked them, killing them all." There is nothing there to imply that the OP stood by doing nothing but watching while his/her neighbor's animals were slaughtered.

Edit: and OP beat me to an answer.

@ 77horses - How far off were your neighbors? I've seen quite a few dogs that look very much like a red fox (particularly at a distance). We have a Fennec Fox and despite being a third generation captive who was hand reared and has been heavily socialized, when he takes food he bolts with it. That's just what they do. They won't come back for more until the food they took has either been eaten or tucked away somewhere safe. The behavior you're describing is beyond drastically out of character for an animal that wasn't captive raised.

 

[77horses]

Clarification: the chickens weren't all killed in one day. My neighbors actually left on vacation for a little less than a week, and they kind of left their chickens to themselves (with an automatic waterer/food container of course). While they were gone, the fox got most of the chickens, and when they came back there was only one left, which is when they saw the fox kill it. They saw it running across the yard with the last chicken, yelled at it, and it dropped it at first and went off into the woods but then it came back and ran off into the woods with it.

 

[ivan3]

Red fox can be downright brazen (there are many threads about Reds coming into yard and grabbing chooks with owner in the yard/nearby). As Aprophet mentioned, they aren't that hard to trap. However, at this location they are much easier to shoot than trap (have had pretty good luck with snares). We had one try to use the big plastic dog house on the front deck (for outdoor cat) as a home (jumped out as we were leaving early one morning - stood in yard staring at us and was shot), have had them circling the run at one in the afternoon and two in the morning. A pair rubbed out all 13 SLW pullets in our neighbor's front yard in ~15min. and cached and ate them approx. 70yds away in our tree line. They will show up again, just keep a .22 handy by the door and move slowly. They go blood simple when they've got a taste of chicken and will stand and debate whether to kill another as one is approaching and taking aim. Do not indulge in unarmed/unsupervised free range if the Reds are about.