Possible raccoons and fox all attacking

[Koeyohte]

Hey,

This past year we lost numerous chickens while they were free ranging during the day. Something, I presume raccoons, broke into the aviary I built with my mom and killed my silver pheasants and bobwhite quails. None of them returned so I assume they were killed within the while they may have gotten away.

We've had digging around the coops, trying to get underneath the sides to dig into the birds' areas. Yesterday morning I went out to feed the chickens and my birds in a separate aviary (turkey poults, silvers and a bobwhite) and there were chicken feathers everywhere inside the coop and in trails outside. We had 5 chickens and haven't seen any of them. I know the rooster was taken, possibly one other one as the feathers lead through and are caught on the fence into the neighbors yard.

The aviary and chicken coop are all hardwire mesh cloth, and the animal found the one place that was chicken wire and tore it open. The same hole size had been ripped open in 7 places all around the bottom of my aviary when my pheasants were taken so I assume it's the same thing.

I was thinking raccoon but this morning, there was a single piece of defecation, resembling that of a small dog, right in front of the chicken coop. Feathers had been spread around and the dirt inside the coop had been loosened up, but I can't decipher any prints. Another, larger pile of dung had been left right where the animal finished off our rooster. None of the defecation had been there yesterday so this happened over the dark hours at night or early this morning.

I read that combining one tbs cayenne pepper + 5 chopped habanero peppers + boiling water and placing it into a spray bottle to spray around the area should at least deter raccoons. Does anyone know if this will work on foxes?

Any other ideas for deterring foxes? Humane only, please. I am greatly upset to know that my poor birds, left in what I thought was a safe area, were killed and obviously very frightened, but I won't kill the fox because it's trying to survive as well.

Thank you,
~Koey

 

[aart]

You can put an apron around your run walls to deter diggers. Of course you know you need to replace the chicken portion with hardware cloth. Electric wire or net around coop and run areas will deter all kinds of predators

 

[centrarchid]

I am having very good success against red fox with a single strand of hot wire placed about 6" above ground and 6" away from coop sides. Fox has to contact hot-wire to effectively dig or even challenge chicken wire. This arrangement serves as backup to dogs with pens close to cover fox uses to avoid dogs.

 

[Koeyohte]

The hot wire sounds like it might be an option, where you have it placed. The coop does already have a skirt around it, dug into the ground. That has prevented the fox from digging into the pen on numerous occassions as I have seen from going outside and looking.

We've already replaced the chicken wire portion with mesh so I have no photos But it had been pulled up, as by a raccoon. My readings and findings around the yard suggest raccoons tearing apart the wire and fox taking anything that is loose.

I'm going to try a cayenne+habanero spray tomorrow.

Thanks,
Koey