Tell me more about foxes hunting habits. Is this fox?

[I have WHAT in my yard?]

I did a search on foxes on here and got some god advice, but i am still looking for more info.

Our coop and run are pretty fox proof, but the flock is accustomed to free ranging for a few hours each afternoon after we get home. Other than hawk we have not had any predator problems as they get locked up each night and checked on regularly by day. (and we have a free ranging dog too.....)

But, the neighbor leaves her chickens out much later than we do and lost a rooster night before last and had one chased up a tree by something last night.

She said it looked like a bog cat/small dog thing moving really fast and it leapt up at the coop and hit the rooster sitting on top. Does that sound like fox to you all?

We had a mystery creature spotted last summer that we never identified and I wonder if it could be that again.....

no cougar mountain lion type critters around here.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Don't know if this will help or not. It gives clues to different predators.

http://osuextra.okstate.edu/pdfs/F-8204web.pdf

 

[I have WHAT in my yard?]

Thanks ridgerunner, but again, those clues don't seem to match what seems to be going on here.

Dusk attack, nothing left behind, four legged and fast. Too large for a cat but doesn't walk or act like a dog.......

Dark, not tawny.

Any other guesses? What animal am I missing thinking of? this is driving me crazy!

 

[CityClucks]

Could be a fox. When I see them running down back they don't really move like a dog - more like a cat, in my opinion.

 

[Judy]

Fisher?

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=128028

See if your neighbor has any memory of what the tail looked like.

 

[I have WHAT in my yard?]

Thanks for the links! Only problem is fisher's don't hang around here.... But, maybe they're back - they were here once in the 1800s.

Dag, I'm just gonna have to keep the ladies locked up till I get a better idea. They are SO mad at me!!

 

[Stonerowfarm]

I'm thinking fisher cat too. Before we got our goats and chickens we had one living upstairs in the barn. It would head out just at dusk, go out behind the barn and start hunting. They are fast enough to take down a ferral cat and mean enough to attack a human. They prefer to be high, either in a tree or in our case, the abandoned loft of the barn. When DH tore out the ceiling he was hit with a large pile of bones it had collected.

 

[Shanay235]

If it's a fox, you'll have to be careful during daylight hours to. For the past three years, a pair of foxes has made a den somewhere close enough to our property that our land is in it's hunting territory. Although they've never managed to get one of my ducks (at least yet) I always see them, about every other day, between noon - 4:00pm, stalking the ducks, looking for a weak spot in the fencing.

 

[I have WHAT in my yard?]

Oh great.........



So are my chooks free ranging days pretty well over?

 

[Shanay235]

That's up to you. I just wanted to let you know that foxes, do hunt durning daylight hours.
Although I've personally never seen a raccoon, opossum, or any other wild predator, (other than the fox & hawks) after my ducks during daylight hours, I'm sure others may risk hunting in broad daylight especially if they have young to feed. I recently had a large house cat take one of my small female runners.