Sly foxes

[hrhta812]

We learned the value of a game cam this week. I was convinced we must have a very smart coon, based on the evidence left behind, but it turned out to be the second of two foxes. Traps appeared untouched, but the game cam showed a fox going by. Who knows, there may be more - we will keep putting out traps. The first fox was caught with a TSC bought coon trap, but it took a snap trap from a sporting goods store to get the 2nd one. We've lost 5 birds in a month, so it has been awful, but at least now we've gotten our processes tweaked to be more effective.

 

[thomasboyle]

Sorry for your losses. Foxes are the toughest of the smaller predators - hard to trap, you don't see them to shoot them and they can wipe out your flock in short order. Good luck on catching him. I had to give up on true free ranging due to foxes, and fenced in a large area with electric net, and that has kept the foxes at bay.

 

[hrhta812]

We have trapped two this week, but we will keep setting the traps, and a larger one is being shipped, just in case.

 

[aart]

Congrats! Reds or grays? Can you post some pics?

 

[hrhta812]

Sure thing! Both were red foxes. The first one, that was caught in the TSC trap, was a young female, or at least I think that's what it was. It was definitely female, and I am guessing it was young because its teeth were very, very white & sharp, and it had no appearance of being a nursing mom or having nursed pups in the past. Hubby dispatched it before I could get out there to get a live pic.



The next one was larger and a male. This was the one I mentioned in the other post, that refused to die. My husband fired at it, it dropped and didn't move, so he went inside to get ready for work. I went out to look at it, and when I started getting close to it, I said "Well, look at you - why did you have to come here and kill my chickens?" and it raised up its head and looked at me, which freaked me out. So, I ran in, told hubby, then took my camera out. When I got out there again, it was laying with head on the ground, eyes closed, doing the death gasp type breathing, and I tried to talk it into looking at me, opening its eyes, anything, but got no response at all. So I went back in and said, oh, don't worry, it'll be dead in a minute or two. He said okay and soon after went to work. Later, I looked out the kitchen window, and couldn't see it, so I thought maybe something had come and taken the carcass. I was worried it somehow took my trap, too, although it was anchored well. That's when I got out there and saw it sitting up; it had gone inside the dog run, to be in the shade. At least that time, it didn't startle me quite as bad, but I really could hardly believe my eyes. I went in and called my husband at work and said, "That #@%&*@% thing is NOT dead AGAIN! It's sitting up!" He was floored - I sent him a pic on e-mail so he would know I wasn't making it up or hallucinating. LOL I guess it was a freak thing where the shot somehow missed anything vital - you know, those stories you hear about somebody walking into the hospital with a knife sticking out of their head but they're just walking around like nothing happened?

Hey, look at me, I'm dead.

Hey, guess what, I woke up, and it turns out, I'm not dead after all!

 

[aart]

Wow hard to trap reds in a live trap.

 

[Shellz]

True! Never managed to get one, though had them around in the past. Dogs out all day now, so no foxes seen this year. I know they're out there & dogs are doing their jobs well!