Fox in daylight?

[I have WHAT in my yard?]

A few days ago we lost a bird. No sign of anything she was just gone.

Yesterday at almost 4 I came out to hear the chickens squawking up a storm!! I came around the corner and there was a fox!! Simply standing out in plain sight not 20 feet from me. We stared at each other for a split second and it bolted.

Today - same time - same fox. It was simply standing in the back yard on the ridge above the coop. I let the dog out and it took off.

What is it doing? Why is it out in broad daylight? I know it is after the chickens, but

c'mon there is alot to eat around here right now, bunnies and groundhog pups everywhere! Why would it be SO brazen? Should I be worried about it being sick?

 

[sgtmom52]

Foxes often hunt during the day, esp when they may have young to feed.

 

[Evermore Ranch]

we have battled many foxes here and see them all times of day. I had to eventually put up fence surrounding all birds and let my dogs stay in there. But we still see them all times of day and very close to the fence.

 

[CityChicker]

I made basically the same thread a couple months ago! It is frustrating, isn't it? Until recently, I had never seen them during the day. A couple of months ago, we had one coming around during daylight hours and really it hardly seemed afraid of me at all. We have had them coming around nightly as long as we have had birds here. I keep all of my birds in predator proof runs that are covered with welded wire and have not lost a single bird. We did used to let them out to free range during the day, but now are not doing that until we get a more extensive electric fence up. Luckily, their covered cages are plenty big enough without the free range time. Foxes are an extremely annoying problem though. I don't know what to do with them at this point, other than an electric fence with hot wire all the way to like 6 feet tall. As it is now, they are clearing multiple 6 foot fences to get in. I have even seen them ON TOP of our coops, some of which are about that same height.

 

[I have WHAT in my yard?]

6 FEET?!?!?! Yeeesh! We never actually saw the foxes around here except for fleeting glimpses at night. My girls have a roo and an 8 foot fence but it only has hawk detterant wire on top.

Will that do??

 

[jwchicklady]

we had a fox come around 5:00pm several days in a row--now I have a farm dog who keeps them away.

 

[arch_cpj]

yep my 3 german shorthairs do a job keepin fox and coon away good mousers too...

 

[KybraBoss]

unfortunately the only deterant for foxes is to remove the potential food source, ie your chickens, here they are vermin so we can basically do what ever to get rid of them within the law, but by removing the individual fox you open a territory for another.
They climb fences, dig for miles, jump, swim and I've even heard stories of them dancing or spinning around outside of runs until a curious hen stick it's head through the mesh for a tasty fox snack. Foxes are opputunistic feeders so will methodically patrol their territory in search of food, your chicken runs included in the hope of you forgetting to shut a gate or a weakness in your defences shows, if they find a way in, they will continue to visit and try your repairs etc to get back to the food source.
we use a combination of fort knox like security at night, fully enclosed runs with complete underground mesh, one fox has completely dug under 12 foot of one run to his disappointment of coming up on the other side of the run, good try mate but smarter than you

a strict lock down in the coop within the runs, if we go away for a couple of days the coops are set up with feeders and water to last up to a week, longer than that we have a reliable person that sticks to our rules, unless foxes discover dynamite they ain't getting in.

Even with these measures in place we did a clear earth rake around the runs for a couple of weeks... every night without fail there was visits to test the defences, so you cannot let your guard down ever.
Occationally we have had the chance to shoot the visitors, 5 in one night, that gave us no visits for three days before the territory got taken over then 2 that night a few days break then three after that we had to stop shooting as the neighbours came home.
Baiting I don't like as it's indescriminate and foxes seem to know the tainted meat and will leave it, the neighbours dogs don't know the difference...

 

[I have WHAT in my yard?]

Dag Kybra! Your foxes must be some Aussie Rambo foxes!!

Ours have never been that desperate I don't think. We have lost a chicken or two to fixes before, but only when the chooks were free ranging. Clearly not something you can get away with!

We have the dog and she has done a good job, but I think the fox figured out that the dog is usually in around dinner time. So our dinner time became its dinner time!

So, we're going to switch things up some schedule wise and now that the weather is nicer force doggie to spend more of it outdoors! I hate to give up free ranging all together.

 

[KybraBoss]

Unfortuneately they are pretty full on.

We live behind a school that has a small farm as part of their curriculum and then there is bushland behind us so there is a few dens in the area.
The tipical round is through the school farm, then onto the bins at the school then through our place.
the times we have to be extra vigilant is weekends and school holidays when the school bins don't have anything to scrounge in them so they get more desperate, I suppose if the school wasn't there I wouldn't have as many foxes concentrated around me.
Over the weekend a neighbour on the other side of the bushland lost 20 naked necks because they were late getting home to lock up... 8pm instead of their normal 6pm...
they have less security than us and often joked about our Fort Knox appoach, I'm going over on the weekend to help them beef up their pens.