Fox and turkeys?

[marquisella]

The only predator I have is a fox. I don't let my chickens out because of it. Will a fox kill a turkey? I feel dumb asking this, but I need a definite answer. My brain says yes, but I''m hopeful...

 

[Frosty]

I'm pretty sure they do if they can catch them... they kill pheasants, ducks, geese... and while I didn't actually see them do it, we did have a few BBW turkeys disappear while free ranging and there was a fox family out in the pasture.

 

[Randy]

I would say that it is possible. Especially a hen turkey.

 

[chickenannie]

I lost 3 turkey hens and 1 huge turkey tom, all full grown, to a fox on a cold winter's night about 3 years ago. An awful bloody scene. Fox tracks all around. Two turkeys dead on the spot, the others badly wounded in the snow and didn't make it past 48 hours despite our intensive care. So the answer is yes, you can easily lose a turkey to a fox. My turkeys were in a fenced pasture (small netting) but we believe the fox jumped to the top of the 4-1/2 foot fence and over the other side.

 

[archerobx]

local farmer lets me hunt predators on her property because the fox and coyotes killed bunch of her geese, and they were some mean geese

 

[marquisella]

Quote:
So, I guess they will not free range then....darn. I figured they couldn't, but had hope that maybe they could escape from a fox.

 

[seabreeze]

Until I let one of my livestock guardian boys patrol over by the turkey pastures, our neighbor was losing chicken and turkey poults to foxes AND skunks (eggs mostly from skunk thievery). My Tibetan Mastiff left enough scent around to keep those predators away. When my male did find one in the pasture he ran it out but stopped at the fenceline as the fox got away. Fox hasn't returned to that particular pasture BUT we did have a fox den nearby the house, not close to the small barn where the turkeys live and one of my girls found the den and one bite over the shoulders and killed the fox. She's also killed a young coyote male, one bite, tossed it and it was DEAD. I had to remove it from the horses' pastures because the horses were going bonkers.

PS>..I had written one of my B****** had found the den but the *board* didn't accept that word and substituted grump ROFL

 

[MrsPinkKitty]

My old tom has gotin away from cyotes but not sure about a fox

 

[HallFamilyFarm]

Livestock Guardian Dogs are the only safe way to protect any poultry. We have one of our pups listed on the BYC auction.

 

[archerobx]

They were free ranged but now have a small flock in a coop as pets. There main stay is cows.

Thats neat about the mastiff, I would have thought with the extra scent the preds would be more active. Thats good to know. Id lovee to find local den