Should I trap the fox?

[chicknmania]

Electric fencing is your friend!
Mary

Thanks, I've looked at that, but what a hassle. I want to get the portable electric chicken netting, but we'd have to cover the top, and they still wouldn't have much room to run. Still, we're keeping it in mind as an alternate if we have to.

 

[McChooky]

Well, you'd think. We put the game cam up. nothing all week. I was gonna let the flock out in the late afternoon tomorrow, day 8, as has been suggested. Nothing on the game cam all week except deer. This morning....8:45AM....game cam shows the fox standing on the edge of the cornfield, gazing towards the barn. Great. It's a big one too so it must be a dog fox. The picture is a little grainy due to distance and light, so I wasn't sure if it was fox or coyote, but I thought I could see the white chest and white brush tip. Just wonderful. The flock tried to storm the door this morning to get out. I think I'm gonna let them out late afternoon tomorrow anyway, and just try to stay with them as much as possible.Maybe let them out every other day or something, idk. And if that doesn't work I guess we'll have to try trap. Our neighbor down the road has free range chickens and no real means of confining them that i know of. I don't know that neighbor, but I have noticed that I havent seen their chickens out recently, neither have I heard their rooster crowing. So maybe the fox went there and cleaned out their flock, I hope not, but I'm thinking probably yeah.Now it's out of food there, so it's back here!

It takes a lot of smarts to outfox a fox. I'm still working on a predator proof chicken tractor so I can let my girls out .My neighbor fed predators for years so I never had any but now that his are gone they're drooling over mine.I don't have any chickens to spare.

 

[My Very First 6 Chickens]

Your description of scat is indicative of raccoon or possibly skunk, not fox. That doesn't mean you don't have a fox too. Only you can say if your coop is predator proof. Based on personal experience, the only fully predator proof enclosure is chain link fence over, under, beside, and apron. Even then, a bear might come along and you can guess the rest.

Raccoons rarely forage during the day. Foxes on the other hand prefer to forage during the day, particularly around 10:00 a.m. in the morning and just before dusk in the evening. Skunks are mostly nocturnal, but rarely bother chickens. If you are a beekeeper, skunks are definitely a problem as they will eat bees for hours sitting at the front of a hive scraping on the landing board to get them stirred up.

wow, good to know about the skunks. I want to get bees soon.

 

[My Very First 6 Chickens]

I don't have the space or means, but if I did, I would have one of these.

me too ,lol

 

[AGeese]

Well, you'd think. We put the game cam up. nothing all week. I was gonna let the flock out in the late afternoon tomorrow, day 8, as has been suggested. Nothing on the game cam all week except deer. This morning....8:45AM....game cam shows the fox standing on the edge of the cornfield, gazing towards the barn. Great. It's a big one too so it must be a dog fox. The picture is a little grainy due to distance and light, so I wasn't sure if it was fox or coyote, but I thought I could see the white chest and white brush tip. Just wonderful. The flock tried to storm the door this morning to get out. I think I'm gonna let them out late afternoon tomorrow anyway, and just try to stay with them as much as possible.Maybe let them out every other day or something, idk. And if that doesn't work I guess we'll have to try trap. Our neighbor down the road has free range chickens and no real means of confining them that i know of. I don't know that neighbor, but I have noticed that I havent seen their chickens out recently, neither have I heard their rooster crowing. So maybe the fox went there and cleaned out their flock, I hope not, but I'm thinking probably yeah.Now it's out of food there, so it's back here!

Ok so you live near woods, have predators don't want to kill, but realize you must do something, and plan now to trap.

So when you trap what are you then planning to do with it? Or did I miss that? Trapping and dumping is not humane and may or may not be effective for you, and might be worse for the animal or your neighor.

Do you work with someone in the DNR?

 

[MamaWolf7]

Here on the Yukon (next to Alaska), foxes run rampant. I literally see them several times a week. Neighbourhoods in town have 'fox boxes' where people can return all of the gloves and shoes the foxes steal and leave elsewhere. They are hugely problematic! The government has published a document about living with foxes. In it there is a diagram on how to build a fox proof coop. I have attached the diagram below.

Just about everyone I know has stories about loosing half to all of their chickens in a single incident, with one neighbour loosing 66/120 chickens. I have an electric fence which usually keeps them out, except when the snow buries the lines (I now know enough to shovel it out). Almost lost my chickens last winter but stepped outside at just the right moment. After that I got wildlife deterrent bullets (orange rubber balls) for my 40 gauge.

The reason foxes leave their scat EVERYWHERE is to claim the territory and keep other foxes away. If you trap and relocate/kill the fox, a new one will move into the territory and you will be back to square 1. Your best bet is to teach the fox that has claimed the territory around your home that there is no point in going after your chickens. You can do this by making your chickens inaccessible and/or using wildlife detergents (cayenne pepper, electric fence, rubber/paint bullets, etc...).

I too have young children. With the proper education they learned by 2 years old not to touch the electric fence, and they do not. Turning it off when they are younger than that and crawling around is as easy and unplugging an electric cord.

Foxes are extremely clever animals and despite your best efforts, the reality is you always run the risk of loosing a chicken to a fox or other predator attack. I recommend educating your children about this possibility in case one day it does happen. "Sonya's Chickens" (see pic) is a great book that gently introduces young children to the idea of a predator attack in the chicken coop.

 

[getaclue]

Electric fences work great. I don't do the netting. I bought a good fencer, wire, and the resistors. You can use the metal fence posts, and put it where you want it. The hardware stores sell a remote control electric plug adapter. Plug that into your outlet, and plug the electric fence into that. The remote turns the outlet on, and off. It's easier than trying to pull the plug, and plug it back in, if it's plugged into an inconvenient to reach location.

 

[Honey Meadows]

Well we are too but we rarely have issues. Sounds like you just like killing and don't bother trying any other measures. At least that is what it sounds like to me. Predators only see chickens as food, they don't see them as "your" chickens. They play an important role in the balance of nature. It is because of people that now the balance is way off. (to put it politely).

It depends where you live, and yes certainly predators can be off balance and out of control. For example, we have a massive over explosive wild hog population that NEEDS to be manages. Every few years, deer do the same. It is the same with other things. If you live on a farm and don't adopt this mindset towards predators, your farm will become a buffet for predators. It's just the way it is. We tried to be nice and relocate different animals but it's simply not feasible for everyone everywhere.

 

[chicknmania]

Its not up to individuals to rry to control what they perceive to be an overpopulation of anything. Thats what game laws are for. We have not had any more fox problems for a month rhough i know they are still around. Its because we were persistent in using deterrent measures and they worked. Not to say that we havent ever killed predators here because raccoons are a problem and they have no predators...again because of people. But its rare that we have to.

 

[chicknmania]

And relöcating wild animals is in most cases a death senzence for them and usually illegal. Its not " being nice", i know wild hogs are an exception bu t thats not what we ar we talking about here