I posted yesterday about what I thought was a dog attack on our flock yesterday. This on top of the hawk attack that devastated our flock earlier this month.
It came to me in the middle of the night that what we experienced was probably not a dog attack but a fox. That would explain (without going into a lot of boring details) how the attack almost seemed to be a "stake out" and how we were unable to ever find any dogs. I read up on foxes attacking chickens and it matches. Young fox. Not afraid. Not unlike the young hawk that we experienced earlier this month;the young ones are hungry and unafraid b/c they have no reason yet to BE afraid. It amazes me that a fox was able to do that much damage in a free range flock...but I read the experience of one person who had a free range flock where the circumstances were identical. The fox will kill as many as it can; take one and then come back for the others later. I took our dog out this morning and showed her where the roosters had been killed. She tracked the predator into dense brambles where I couldn't go. And it would be hard I think for a dog to go there too. I read that young foxes sometimes hunt in pairs and this would explain why the chickens that were killed were so wide spread. It killed at least three chickens including two roosters (that I know of) in the space of forty minutes. There may be more missing I found a dead hen this morning which brought the total to three. I was relieved to find our beautiful gray rooster Captain unharmed. Whatever it was pulled his tail out but he is unharmed. WE have been going out there every hourtoday to throw explosives (fireworks); just hang out out there turn the talk radio off and on and make noise. Anything to save the rest of the flock. I just thought I'd throw this out there for reference if others have this problem.
It came to me in the middle of the night that what we experienced was probably not a dog attack but a fox. That would explain (without going into a lot of boring details) how the attack almost seemed to be a "stake out" and how we were unable to ever find any dogs. I read up on foxes attacking chickens and it matches. Young fox. Not afraid. Not unlike the young hawk that we experienced earlier this month;the young ones are hungry and unafraid b/c they have no reason yet to BE afraid. It amazes me that a fox was able to do that much damage in a free range flock...but I read the experience of one person who had a free range flock where the circumstances were identical. The fox will kill as many as it can; take one and then come back for the others later. I took our dog out this morning and showed her where the roosters had been killed. She tracked the predator into dense brambles where I couldn't go. And it would be hard I think for a dog to go there too. I read that young foxes sometimes hunt in pairs and this would explain why the chickens that were killed were so wide spread. It killed at least three chickens including two roosters (that I know of) in the space of forty minutes. There may be more missing I found a dead hen this morning which brought the total to three. I was relieved to find our beautiful gray rooster Captain unharmed. Whatever it was pulled his tail out but he is unharmed. WE have been going out there every hourtoday to throw explosives (fireworks); just hang out out there turn the talk radio off and on and make noise. Anything to save the rest of the flock. I just thought I'd throw this out there for reference if others have this problem.
