Hi there, hope you are enjoying BYC!Fox got in our coop last night. Killed one and injured another. It got through the smallest opening. We ended up shooting the Fox. We had to save our girls. Thankfully, my husband heard the chickens going crazy. It was at 2 am. Could we have done anything else to get the fox out of the coop beside killing it?
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So sorry for your loss and maybe even more so your experience.
It's never easy to take a life, even when it was the right thing to do. It usually leaves my head reeling.
If you want pointers for predator proofing please post photos of your set up. Most of us with heavy predation issues use 1/2 inch hardware cloth screwed not stapled to cover any holes larger than that.
A skirt buried straight down for subterranean diggers and an apron coming about 2 feet out from the coop on the ground surface. Most animals aren't smart enough to back up for digging under. We are rebuilding stuff right now too.. and I left chicks in a dog crate saying I hadn't seen any raccoons lately.. Next morning there was a coon in the trap set for fixing feral barn cats. It was big and hadn't shown up for the cat food two prior weeks I was feeding the cats. But a definite wake up call to NOT let my guard down!
Fort Knox has multiple layers of protection. I can't remember seeing any reports of their security failing.
A simple underground skirt or solid floor in the coop could prevent digging under. If digging under the baseboard was ALL it took to get to your birds that is NOT Fort Knox level security.. where they even have underground vibration detectors... and thick CONCRETE floor.
Why hate a fox that's just a hungry animal trying to survive? If you open a buffet for them what do you expect? Sometimes they are JUST trying to feed their young... at least they DO eat their kill even if they cash some for later.
If you literally cannot free range without foxes then flock lock down is the answer. Close the buffet and they move on at least for a while and the process repeats.
I mean a simple baited Electric wire or an automated scarecrow sprinkler could send a fox packing.. you gotta be smarter than the animal.
I am definitely sorry for your losses and experience that made you hate another living thing for it's own survival. I'm sure that was overall an awful experience for you!
It's true it would have returned and I think the OP did what WAS necessary at the time.
But NO, killing it is not the only way (to stop it from returning).. they could have beefed up the security before it's return. Kept birds inside at night until security was confirmed adequate, etc..
If a fox could get in so can any other number of animals looking for chicken dinner.
My preference over killing everything is LAYERS of security and constant vigilance to notice ANY sign threat.
Foxes, coyotes, hawks and others.. help keep balance in nature.. which I LOVE and is WHY I moved to the forest to live with it, not at war with it. If killing all the predators was the only way to keep fowl.. I guess I would count myself out. Yes, we eat meat. Yes, we dispatch when required. But more that that we remain respectful of our environment and aware of our place in the circle of life.
Obviously the OP doesn't feel good about killing the fox and you trying to paint them as evil just isn't the truth. @Blw18 sounds like you took vengeance instead of action to correct YOUR part of the equation. How long ago was that and how long before a new family of fox moves in? Domestic dogs are much worse killing every bird in the flock just for fun and leaving them. Do you hate dogs also?
