Fox Got A Lot Of My Chickens!

[ksulley]

Drove down the driveway at 2 in the afternoon yesterday to find a fox attacking one of my chickens.
It was horrifying! The fox ran away but my chicken died in front of me. Thats not the end!
I have 10 chickens. 3 missing, 1 injured, found my BO dead in the field and now only have 4 left.
How can a fox do that much damage in an hour! Sooooo upset! I need help on how to build a pen!

 

[greenfamilyfarms]

I'm sorry that this happened to you. The good side is that you know that it was a fox that was attacking them. Pen your chickens up and set a live trap baited with some of the remains of the one it killed. If you can't do that, you can use chicken parts from your freezer.

 

[Inkheart]

So sorry to hear that - they usually only take what they need - problem is - it will come back. Really sorry ....

 

[ksulley]

I just bought a fox trap and put some frozen chicken legs in it! Wish me luck!

 

[hkwdesign]

I feel your heartache - a red fox got 3 of my sweet chickens this week and of the 3 I have left, 2 are injured but seem to be doing fine...
I'm curious what you plan to do with the fox once you catch it (or caught it?) This has been suggested to us too. Thanks!

 

[Serama Mama 4]

I lost some to foxes, set a trap....nothing! The best ways to protect them is to either keep them in a run made from hardware on ALL 6 sides even the floor, or get a good livestock guardian animal. But it has to be trained to not kill chickens. You can sometimes get lucky and find one already trained or you would have to do it yourself. We just got an anatolian shepherd puppy. Theyre a good breed.

 

[Poupoulles]

me too!! Its so sad! Killed five and carried off three of them. And of course it was my favorite ladies, not the mean useless ones!

 

[ivan3]

Red Fox will often time be paired up at this time of the year. Our neighbor lost 13 SLW's in a little over 15min., a couple of years ago. I found the cache site in our woodline (had carried all 13 off and stripped them down under a couple of Cedars about 150yds. from the kill). I found the den on a south facing hillside in our woods about 200yds further back.

We shoot them as a rule (brush cut verge of undergrowth in woods around yard/house and leave a few `noses' of Multifloral Rose/Gooseberry protruding out - hens start growling while ranging and all pile up under the big Lilac, I just pick up the rifle and look at the base of the underbrush - the foxes try to get close by low crawling into the extended clumps of brush ending up on their bellies in the center of the aiming point).

I'd suggest 6ft. Welded Wire fencing/electric fencing/netting and no unsupervised/unarmed `free range' until the vermin is retired from the target pool.

 

[Jobele]

Well, I'll just post my 2 cents worth.......we just killed two fox that were coming onto our property trying their best to get to my chickens! I really hate to have to kill any animal, but in this case we had shot numerous shots to try and scare them off and tried to throw things at them and everything. It was as though they were laughing at us.....they would walk or trot a few feet away and then turn around and look at us. They were not scared of anything that we did!!!!

I've had a whole flock wiped out by two stray dogs in the past....before I put up a six foot no climb fence and built coops that were covered completely with broadcloth wire and plywood 2 feet up from the base. We also put truck pallets on the floor inside the coop and put sheets of plywood on top of that.....so nothing could get in from any angle. I haven't had any problem with wild animals getting into my coop at night, but I do worry about them during the day when they free range...even if the ARE BEHIND THE 6 foot fence!

These fox were going to be a problem and I had tried to chase them away. I know a lot of people try to catch them in live traps, but I always worry that even though you take them somewhere else....you are just taking the problem to someone else. So, we shot them both with a shotgun. End of story! I love my chickens more than I love a wild fox that can kill my chickens or worse carry rabies and attack my family or my pets....so they had to go.

Also, if you call Wildlife and Fisheries or any of the Animal Control facilities, Police, etc. They can't help you....so you have to take care of business yourself. Like I said before....I don't like killing any animal...but sometimes it's necessary for you to make the choice.

 

[aprophet]

Quote:
if it is a cage trap it needs to be large google "drift fencing cage trap red fox"