New predator came in daylight!

[Cpprpnny19]

The hawks have been landing nearby in the trees, the turkey vultures
have been circling, and today at @ 3:30 a coyote or gray fox darted
away across the neighbor's back field when we went out to see the
goat. Luckily we must have interupted it stalking the chickens.

Time to stop the 100% free ranging I guess. Would break my heart
to lose any of the girls.

Lynne

 

[mrpekinduck]

Good luck and glad you didn't lose any of you're girls.

 

[mamadukes5]

I went to buy hay today at a farm up the road and was talking to the lady there about chickens. She said she used to have a flock, but they have all been killed by a fox since the beginning of this summer. She said she saw it running through her cow field a couple of times in the middle of the day and that's when it got all of her chickens. She also said most everybody around here has lost a lot of theirs to foxes this year too. I lost two when I was just starting out to a racoon, at night, in my garage, but I havent seen any foxes. I've been lucky so far, I guess, though I have seen the hawks more often this year.

 

[swift4me]

In the month of June, several neighbors had lost chickens to foxes. I started trapping at one farm, very close to their barns and house, and caught 6 in three weeks. Including others killed by neighbors or found on the road, we counted 14 in four weeks time from an area less than 1 mile in radius. That's alot of foxes.

None of the neighbors, who've farmed in thisvalley for generations, can remember so many foxes as this year. Some think that when people in bigger towns toward the coast live trap foxes, they bring them to the country and release them. Maybe, maybe not.

It has been much calmer lately.

Pete

 

[D'Angelo N Va.]

Well the thing is the more the cities/ towns expand the more the fox's territory is diminished so they have to go somewhere. I would keep my chickens in a hen house with a nice secure run, unless ppl. Just have chickens to feed to the foxes.