I Have a Fox Problem

[cmom]

I lost one of our free ranging hens to a fox a couple weeks ago. We have a couple roosters so they alerted us and we chased it away. We made sure to have our .22 close by. Early that same evening ( all the chickens were penned up) the fox returned and the roosters sounded the alarm. He didn’t live too much longer. In Alberta, trapping is illegal even if it’s a nuisance predator so the .22 was our only option to be rid of it. Unfortunately our dogs were useless and sleeping on the other side of the yard both times the fox came by ‍.

If a predator kills livestock here including chickens we are allowed to eliminate them and I have except for birds of prey. Sure there are plenty more that will move into the territory and if they kill my birds I'll eliminate them too. My flocks are well protected.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/i-have-a-fox-problem.1320127/page-3#post-21522832

 

[kathy r]

I only just started raising chickens. My chicks are about 4 months old. I have a store bought coop and I made an extra outside pen/run for them out of chicken wire (mistake #1). I only let them out in the chicken wire area when I'm home so I can keep an ear/eye out for them. I saw a fox on our property last week but it didn't go near the chicks. Today I saw another one, I think it was a different one. The fox snatched 3 of my 4 chicks. I'm pretty sure it was coming after the last one because when I went out to check on them I saw it running away and only one chick remained. I have 2 questions:
1. What is the best type of trap I can use to get him? I saw someone mention a spring trap in another post.

2. My friend has a farm with 20-30 chickens of all ages. Do you think she'd be better off there or would they pick on her for being new?

I don't feel comfortable bringing more chickens on my property until I have a better setup which I'll start working on this weekend. There are farms w/ chickens all around my property so it didn't occur to me that there'd be a predator issue.

Thank you so much! Sorry for such a long post.

 

[kathy r]

I am sorry about your chicks. I have many foxes in my neighborhood so we designed a very secure run. We used 10x6 chain link dog kennel panels as the sides. I am only 5’7” so can stand up comfortably in there. We dug out 36” from the side and laid 36” hardware cloth on the ground held (held in place with sod stakes and covered with mulch) attached to a 4x4 that is held in place by rebar that we drove through (drilled hole in wood) and into ground. We attached pieces of 24” hardware cloth to the 4x4 that go up the side so nothing can reach into the run. I have chicken wire over the top that is led up with pieces of bamboo (which I have plenty of, unfortunately!). The original run was 20x20 and I just added another 10x20 this spring when we got 4 chicks. I have a total of 10 now. This may be overkill but I feel better.
We bought an Amish built coop that is very sturdy and heavy. I did build a small coop for the babies so they could transition into the outside with the big girls. It sits inside of the pen and is a temporary thing so I am not so worried about its sturdiness.

 

[DianaG59]

You cannot trap a fox. Illegal. Store bought coop Mistake #1 ( made this mistake also). How did it get in?? Did you bury the wire 18 inches out from your enclosure? Did it get under the fence? I have fox and it just watched my girls, it found out it was WAY too much trouble to try to get in. I have an enclosed 12x 24ft garden, their coop is inside, the fence is 6ft high, I have hardware cloth around the perimeter and buried 18 inches out. I've had Chickens going on 3 yrs, not ONE predator death. After my first year I realized I was in OVER my head, I studied and built my own coop.

You can trap a fox in a live trap if your city or town allows it and Animal Control can furnish you with a live trap at your request. Our town is so overrun with foxes it's causing a major garbage problem with groups of foxes overturning cans, or there are so many they cannot find thier natural food and 2 have been trapped as they are starving!

 

[jspeese]

Frankly, in my opinion, if a predator is on my property killing my livestock, anything goes. But avoiding or at least minimizing the risk of the problem in the first place by building an as secure coop and run as possible, and not keeping any more birds in it than can be comfortably and healthily housed in it 24/7 if need be is the best way to go. You may end up having to keep fewer birds, but the ones you do have should be safe and productive.

 

[PirateGirl]

I just want to throw out one more thing as all these suggestions are mentioned. We h e already determined that whether or not it is legal can depend what country/state/region you are in. In addition to that however, there may be laws regarding what types of traps are or are not permitted to be used, also there may be restrictions (usually on a local level) as to what type of fence you are or are not permitted to erect. Again, I advise contacting local authorities before moving forward with any plans, but it looks like you’ve gotten some great advice regarding trapping and predator proofing your setup. Good luck. I’ve had a fox visit almost every day this past week and I saw her with a kit one evening as well. It can be nerve wracking. So far it’s been the dogs that are doing the best at keeping the flock safe.

 

[Biddybot]

While I know that Nature abhors a vacuum and that removing one predator just frees up a territory for another to move in, I think that some people forget that predatory animals are no more automatically interchangeable than are human beings...they're all individuals and their past experiences with humans in general may well colour how they're going to relate to YOU and YOUR territory once they start living next door to you, as it were. Right now, we've got a nuisance fox in the neighbourhood because some jackasses down the road thought it was cute to 'tame' it by feeding it and it's largely lost its fear of humans as a result. No big deal to me...I've got fencing and lock up my gang at night. Not so great for the woman who's got silkies a few houses over and who let them out to forage a bit in her backyard while she stayed with them...only to watch said fox race in and snatch one of her pullets even though she was standing right there! Now that's bold! I'm seriously thinking of getting rid of this animal now instead of just toying with the idea for her sake--the one good thing about tame predators is that they become much easier to catch and I know this fox will visit my yard if I leave the front gate open at night--and expect that the poor woman will then at least have some reprieve once a more suitably wary fox inclined to run from humans rather than approaching them for a handout moves in. Well...she'll have some relief until the jackasses no doubt try to tame the new one too. Oh well, this is why I have seven traps in total and snares a-plenty.

The best fox neighbours in the world are the ones who've had their backsides peppered with light bird shot a few times and their muzzles zapped with a heavy-duty jolt of electrical perimeter fencing. Even if it happened elsewhere, they usually carry the experiences with them wherever they go and avoid people like the plague and will make a wide detour around your yard, at least during the daytime when humans are likely to be about. That's the sort of predator I like to see move in. Of course, all bets are off if an animal gets truly desperate for food, but as long as the wild foraging's good and plentiful, I suspect most normal, unhabituated critters would just as soon avoid you and do their own thing.

I also wonder if a certain degree of what might be termed animal culture doesn't sometimes factor into our clashes with predators. This came up for me in a thread about ravens a while back...someone was having trouble with ravens attacking their adult chickens. This was news to me--I knew they went after chicks, but adults?--and wondered afterwards if this wasn't a learned behaviour, with parents or even just one parent who'd been successful at killing an adult chicken in the past, teaching their resultant young that those big slow feathery things that roamed around on the ground in people's yards were actually viable prey one could have a go at as long as those pesky humans weren't around. Personally, I've never heard of anyone locally losing a large chicken to a raven, but that may only be because no raven has ever tried to kill one yet...at least, again, not locally. The closest I've seen is the local crows teaching their kids to hunt juvenile starlings freshly out of the nest. And garbage, they teach the youngsters how to tear open garbage bags and discover the hidden treasures inside every Friday morning when there's a scheduled garbage pickup. This CAN'T be innate normal crow behaviour. What crow living away from people and where they visit ever sees a black garbage bag? But raiding the garbage and hunting fledglings is normal behaviour for MY crows because it's being passed on from one generation to the next. Hopefully, I'll never get a raven who's learned about killing adult chickens moving into the neighbourhood because then my flock will be in trouble. I've got a LOT of ravens, and the new generation's out of the nest right now!

No new raccoons around to bug me either. Have others moved into the territorial slots I opened up when I took out those 10+ coons last year and that sad injured one earlier this spring? Oh, I'm sure they have. But none so far have demonstrated that they've learned to raid bird feeders or know how to tear their way into a chicken run...whoever replaced last year's varmints is keeping their distance...so far. This is just another example of why I never let the thought of new predators moving in as fast as I dispatch the old deter me. The new ones might be a lot warier or already have reason to fear people or maybe they'll need a long learning curve before they become bona fide nuisance predators. Heck, I don't even mind the red squirrels that are raiding my sunflower seed feeders right now. They are only two of them, they're both males, and they only come up from their respective patches of woods once a day towards evening to grab some seeds and then promptly return home. 'Pests' like this I don't mind. It's the ones that hang around ALL DAY LONG and who run around on your house and outbuildings looking to chew holes and move in that I get the traps out for!

Anyway, like I said, I believe that there are dangerous nuisance predators and then there are bearable predators. I think it's worth taking out the dangerous ones on the off chance that their replacements will be of the more bearable variety.

 

[Judy Todd]

Thanks!! I'm a wife , mother, nurse, and over 50ys old!! I built it myself with my 14yr old daughter as my apprentice, and my 20yr old son as the occasional needed MUSCLE. My husband was hands off because if it went bad he didn't want to be blamed . I'm proud of what I built, I took an entire winter studying and critiquing other's designs. I finally decided on copying the Wichita coop. My design is reverse of the coop on this site. My girls love it!, It's easy to clean and I have 3 egg boxes for 6 hens. I'm very proud of my accomplishment! Thanks

You deserve a gold star, great coop design. I did the same thing, but I am 80, built it when I was 75. Not quite as nice as yours, tons of recycled wood, but it is safe and the girls love it. I am lucky, my girls can freerange all day. Yes, there is a chance of a fox jumping three fences to get to them, but so far no trouble. Again, good work, love to hear what other women are accomplishing on their own.

 

[LibbyRossk]

I only just started raising chickens. My chicks are about 4 months old. I have a store bought coop and I made an extra outside pen/run for them out of chicken wire (mistake #1). I only let them out in the chicken wire area when I'm home so I can keep an ear/eye out for them. I saw a fox on our property last week but it didn't go near the chicks. Today I saw another one, I think it was a different one. The fox snatched 3 of my 4 chicks. I'm pretty sure it was coming after the last one because when I went out to check on them I saw it running away and only one chick remained. I have 2 questions:
1. What is the best type of trap I can use to get him? I saw someone mention a spring trap in another post.

2. My friend has a farm with 20-30 chickens of all ages. Do you think she'd be better off there or would they pick on her for being new?

I don't feel comfortable bringing more chickens on my property until I have a better setup which I'll start working on this weekend. There are farms w/ chickens all around my property so it didn't occur to me that there'd be a predator issue.

Thank you so much! Sorry for such a long post.

 

[LibbyRossk]

Are you going to trap all the foxes, raccoons, skunks, etc. that come by your property forever? Not realistic or very nice. If you want to have chickens, you need to predator proof their setup.