Pennsylvania!! Unite!!

[stake]

good luck, seems like it is gonna be a bad year with fox attacks....just not enough people trapping them anymore.

Wing:

Last year the foxes didn't come around to late winter/spring....(when food supplies are lean)....they are moving early suggesting the rodent population and other food sources are not available...may need a big outdoor dog to stand guard...my pooch will not stay in the yard....who knows.....Maybe rent a Bella???

 

[chiques chicks]

      What kind of traps do you use to catch foxes?  The problem with foxes is that they seem able to avoid most set traps,  traps other predators are easily caught in.

As I recall from my trapping days 40 years ago....

I never trapped fox. It required extreme caution concerning scent, boilling traps, wax, rubber gloves, etc. Way more than I was prepared to do, given there weren't a lot around then.

Only fox anyone in my family ever got was one my elderly mother shot a number of years ago that came around the house to eat the cat food. She had called the game commission and their response at the time was s,s,s.(shoot, shovel, shut up).

I might add, she was right handed but had had surgery on her right shoulder, so used the 22 with her off hand. One shot drop. Yeah, she was feisty, lol

 

[LisaYolkUm]

I have some crazy chickens. I went to check everyone and I couldn't find my broody silkie. All my silkies were in the coop and there was a "hole to China" in the wood chips. I then look back in the corner I last seen my silkie. I seen a feather poking out and I brush off the pile of wood chips and see my silkie barely breathing. **** silkies are very persistent with being broody, she would rather die that leave her eggs.


Stake sorry for your loss. I hope you don't loose any more chickens.

are you saying your silkie dug herself a wood chip hole and crawled in?

so much so that she can hardly breathe?

or was she disguised by the wood chips?

 

[jmayday]

Well folks,

The predators are back...saw a feather pile and blood this morning in a corner of the yard....(I didn't get out last even to check on everything)...as I found no body and my neighbor saw a fox in her backyard towards dusk, looks like one of my Lav Orp adoptee is gone...got home from work today and found a bit of confusion in the coops and animal tracks on the fresh snow...(dog also was barking along the fence line)....well Roo#2 was back in coop#1 and Roo#1 was in coop#2....(a first for Roo#1)...and my adoptee americauna was AWOL....fearing the worst, I began searching the backyard with a flashlight...well I found her perched on top of the coop#2 fence next to the gate....I tried to put her in coop #2 and she refused to go in???,  I placed her on roost in Coop #1.....

Net sum...I now have a second predator stalking the girls...and have lost 3 of my 4 orps to predators this fall/winter....if the snow ends early enough, I may try to find some fresh fox tracks in the snow in the morning...maybe I'll get lucky and follow the tracks back to the den.....

sorry for the rant/thread hog......

sorry to hear about that!! Are you sure it's a fox? Any pictures of the tracks?

 

[OneMountainAcres]

Eggs are rocking and rolling in the bator this morning! Looks like the Marans are the feisty ones so far since they're the ones moving around lol

 

[dheltzel]

Eggs are rocking and rolling in the bator this morning! Looks like the Marans are the feisty ones so far since they're the ones moving around lol

 

[stake]

sorry to hear about that!! Are you sure it's a fox? Any pictures of the tracks?

JM:

Not absolutely....but from where the feather pile was and the neighbor's yard is very close....and whatever it was took the carcass of a full grown orp....its still snowing here so yesterday's tracck are covered up....

 

[wingstone]

Quote: really could not tell you... we have trappers that come in, they tell me that they get a few red fox from our area every year.......i will ask them when I see them.

 

[dheltzel]

really could not tell you... we have trappers that come in, they tell me that they get a few red fox from our area every year.......i will ask them when I see them.

We have a really good trapper for foxes, and some hunters too that come out at night with lights. One year, maybe year before last, the trapper got 28 foxes! Apparently, the farm is really good habitat for them. They do take some chickens I'm sure, but not nearly enough to sustain that many foxes, so they must be feasting on rabbits and mice or something.

We have lots of groundhogs, rabbits, squirrels, etc. We encourage the hunters and quite a lot come through, yet the populations are hardly dented. I suppose we are selecting for faster and smarter prey animals - no slacker rabbits here!

 

[barbiegirl]

are you saying your silkie dug herself a wood chip hole and crawled in?

so much so that she can hardly breathe?

or was she disguised by the wood chips?

The other silkies kicked all the wood chips over her. I couldn't even see my little Blue Belle. She lays flat down over the eggs. She is tiny so I guess it gives her more space to cover the eggs. She wouldn't even stand up to get the wood chips off of herself. They buried her in a mound of wood chips. I didn't want to move her by herself since it is so cold and the extra body heat from the other silkies is a bonus. She is doing much better today. Breathing normally.