The Not so Fantastic Mr Fox (?)

[hayley3]

A raccoon doesn't have enough leg height to be carrying its prey off, but I'm sure it could happen if it just had to go a short distance, it could drag it there, unless of course, it was a chick or something small. I had a fox that dug under my barn wall, killed a guinea and then drug the bird back out a very tiny space. I saw the blood trail on the wall where he drug it out.

 

[WthrLady]

Mink kill everything at once, even for sport. They go manic and just kill kill kill.

A fox will kill and haul off, or kill and kill and come back for the kills. They don't eat them right away. They haul them off and hide them for later.

They can also get into some seriously small spaces.

 

[varidgerunner]

A raccoon doesn't have enough leg height to be carrying its prey off, but I'm sure it could happen if it just had to go a short distance, it could drag it there, unless of course, it was a chick or something small. I had a fox that dug under my barn wall, killed a guinea and then drug the bird back out a very tiny space. I saw the blood trail on the wall where he drug it out.

Nope. They will grab a chicken in their mouth and toss their head and flip it up on their back and run. Their legs aren't as short as they look either. Very powerful animals. They can even climb up a tree carrying a chicken. Have seen them do it. But if undisturbed, they usually eat it right where it died, or at least the tasty parts, especially brains.

 

[aart]

Mink kill everything at once, even for sport. They go manic and just kill kill kill.
A fox will kill and haul off, or kill and kill and come back for the kills.

This is not for 'fun' or 'sport'.....it's instinct to make the most of a successful hunt, many predators will kill as many as they can and cache them for future feeds without having to hunt again.

 

[varidgerunner]

Most animals have very short windows to gather food. Most birds have a short nesting period, and a short moulting period. Not many times that a fox can kill a wild goose, for instance. So their natural inclination is to kill as many as possible when presented with easy targets. They can eat rotten meat, they can even come back and eat bones that other scavengers have left behind. They might even bury some. When their are young to be trained, and easy targets become available, you might see even more "wasteful" killing. Nothing is wasted in nature. If a fox kills ten chickens and eats two of them, and a coyote comes and gets the other eight, that is better for the fox than coyotes eating fox pups. If the meat spoils and buzzards get it, the fox can still come back and scavenge a bone or two, for months to come. They have to kill when presented targets, and if their are easy targets, they will kill as many as they can. This is true for all predators.

 

[EasterEggerEthan]

Thank you all for the responses and input- It somehow hadn't occurred to me that two could strike at once.

After a long night of walking outside with two phone flashlights roughly every half hour from 9:35PM to 7:40AM (keeping a log), the remaining three are safe but i still don't know exactly what it was. I do know however that something was out there. My second trip out, the dog refused to step off the porch with me and i pretty much just walked halfway out into the yard before i heard a bunch of fallen tree bark crunching and what sounded like something either climbing up or jumping the tree rather quickly.
Im pretty sure that scared it off for the night, because the pork went untouched; however i opened all of my windows to make sure i could hear anything going on and the dog went stiff and pointed her ears a few times outside around midnight. Im lucky enough to have a few cats as well, but then again they also get stiff when someone rolls out a vacuum, so they're probably not the most reliable fox detectors.

Was the second kill outside of the run? If not I'm not sure it was a fox.

They were both inside of the run im assuming- the girls were locked in. The Wyandotte was pressed up against (or maybe she drug herself there, but i still don't get why it left her behind and took the smaller one the next day) the edge of the HOC. The Brahma's found ways to escape before, but it was before we wrapped the entire run.

They don't even seem scared. They're just carrying on.

 

[MARSMOM]

You're so lucky they aren't spooked. Mine had to be kept in the coop for a week after the hit because they wouldn't come back in at dusk on their own anymore. They were choosing to roost in trees.

 

[GreenbrierChickens]

I lost 5 yesterday to a fox. Feathers is the only trace. Middle of the day too. Looks like he killed them all in a fury and came back for them.

First time fox attack here (Anne Arundel county)

 

[centrarchid]

Fencing and penning chickens can be used. I have very heavy fox traffic where one knows how to get past fence. It visits mostly at night during interval my other system, dogs, is derailed by fireworks. A modification that is not the most practical for me can make so fox is less problematic even when dogs are out of the picture.