Is this a fox?

[Mountain Man Jim]

Black Phase Red Fox ...

I believe this is the predator in question. The tail, legs, body and head seem to match. The only thing that seems to be missing in the photo in the first post is the white tip of the tail which might be small or missing on the fox pictured. Check out the Flickr page via Goggle that I stole this picture from, there are some not shots on that site.

Jim

 

[BlackBrookPoultry]

Notice the white tip on the tail of the black fox, also the size of the ears. We actually just saw one of these on our property this weekend. The picture you posted is a cat. No doubt about it.

 

[kateseidel]

I did not really expect to see a lot of predators, but am just plain nosey, so we put the cams up. We've been pretty quiet until the last month when we have started picking up possums every night, racoons, dogs during the day, and one particular cat. We actually know most of the cats in the area, and have never seen one like this, which is why I questioned whether it was a cat. But I am irritated enough at the possums to put out a trap, so we'll see!!

FYI, one of our buff orpingtons went missing last week - absolutely no trace at all, she just did not come back to the coop at the end of the day. We're hoping she's chosen to go broody out in the woods, but one of the local dogs may have gotten her.

 

[AllAlaskan]

Quote:
Up here they call those Silver Fox (or atleast all the trappers do) cause of the silver coloring due to the grey guard hairs. They are very pretty animals but for small animals like MY chickens they are deadly. but usually a black phase or Silver fox do have a white tip on the tail but not always.

 

[cackleberrycoop]

Quote:
I have been so tempted to do this so many times. I think that if I could see how the night animals are trying to get into the coops, then we would be that much better at building them tamper proof. It drives me crazy thinking about all the predators trying to get my birds! I bet you learned so much about your area from those cams.

 

[Mountain Man Jim]

kateseidel,

I don't really understand the whole trapping thing, but hopefully you will get another picture of your vistor. For me the tail says fox, with or without the white tip. Our foxes keep a pretty regular schedule and pattern, so in a few days you may get another sighting.

From what I've seen of fox kills, the body will be missing completely, but just outside of your secured property (fence, etc.) your will find a pile of feathers where the bird was plucked. If I remember correctly, removing the feathers is typical for foxes.

Looks like you may need to add some additional security for the girls.

Good luck!

Jim

 

[woodmort]

Quote:
I do the same thing using up to 3 cams--have captured a pair of gray foxes plus a red, raccoons, the neighbor's dogs and all three of our cats. In fact I have a video of our long-haired cat that looks exactly like the OP picture but can't post video here. Mostly I get deer photos--two or three nice bucks plus does and fawns. My best series of pics is of two bucks testing each other. My primarily reason for the camera is to see if we're being visited by any coyotes--thus far <knock on wood> nothing even though we hear them all around.

 

[kateseidel]

Our predators would very much like to get into the coop - but so far, they have not been able to do so. We did find one area just near the run-door where the dirt was deeper (mostly, I have about 3" of topsoil and then granite), and we found signs of digging. In that area we have reinforced by running hardware cloth from the coop frame and then out about 18 inches. There's no way we could trench and bury it vertically. The horizontal layout seems to be working well.

What was really interesting to me is how EARLY some of them come by! I somehow thought all of our visitors would be in the wee hours, but we are seeing the possums and coons come by within 30- 45 minutes of it getting dark. I am very conscientious about getting the coop locked up BEFORE it gets dark these days.

Anyway, cams go back up this morning and we'll see. I'm really happy with them and they were not that expensive - it's fun to see what's going on (not so fun to see hundreds of pictures of my butt going in and out of the coop, but we just fast forward through those....)

 

[LaurelRidgeDreams]

We can hear fox "barking" day and night. Our dogs have killed two racoons, one stupid enough to climb over their fence. Predators are everywhere around here. Kate, I don't know if your picture is a domestic cat or not but I don't think it's a fox. The ears are two short and there is no white on the tail. Hank's thinking it might be a black fox.

 

[Carrie Lynn]

Kate, did you see raccoons during the day?
Oh, and that's a cat in the photo, looks just like my neighbor's.