Chickens and Ducks killed by fox

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adrianhaslett

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Hello.

All but one of my chickens and ducks recently got killed by a fox while free ranging while i my wife was out doing ghe school run. The chickens had been free ranging for 3 years without issues before. The fox jumped a 5 foot wooden fence even though he could have jumped 4 foot picket fencing with chicken wire between them. My question is, is this the end of allowing chickens to freerange without puting 6 foot fencing everywhere, which is not viable being its a terrace house. Or is their ways to stop foxes entering by way of something that deters them. Ive heard they dont like human sent and urinating arround the edges would work but do not fancy this. Would something like a scarecrow with human hair with perhaps part of it urinated on work ?.
 
Hi Adrianhaslett and welcome to the forum. Sorry to hear of the loss of your ducks and chickens. We went years without a fox attack and then had three in quick succession. The reason for that we think was rehoming our big sheep (which free ranged in the chicken enclosure) prior to moving to France -the attacks came shortly afterwards.

The problem is once foxes know where the food is nothing short of a substantial fence will stop them and perhaps 6 feet high isn't enough as our fox jumped clean over a 6 foot wall. Urinating is a myth as we were and still got hit. We are aiming for a 2 metre fence combined with electrified strands top and bottom, so at the moment our double fence arrangement at 5' 6" and a metre out 3' netting is a risk.

Interesting point about your picket fence. I have read that foxes won't jump a broken or uneven line. Prince Charles has a picket fence arrangement around his chickens at Highgrove. It is made of posts randomly arranged between 4 feet and 7 feet high. Apparently the CCTV picked up 7 foxes stalking around it one day, but none were willing to jump over. Of course that is an expensive solution, but worth considering if your enclosure will be small.

Electric netting can be effective, but foxes can sense a power failure and will be in immediately. They patrol the same areas every day waiting for such an opportunity.
 
Hi Adrian, sorry to hear about the fox attack. I'm afraid that now the fox knows where you are, he will be back. This is a difficult time of year, when foxes are feeding cubs so need to hunt more, and in daylight, as your wife discovered. I think the scarecrow solution is very inventive, but would be totally ineffective. You could consider electric fence, though in a small suburban garden this is a bit if a nuisance maybe.
One of our members recently had a lot of trouble with repeated fox attacks, they were even coming when she was out with her birds in her garden. In the end, she Googled Fox Control for her area, lots of entries came up, and she got a man who came along, shot and removed the fox. Some areas are overrun with urban foxes and you couldn't hope to solve the problem this way, but you've not had foxes before, it's possible that this isolated attack was from a new fox moving in on your territory and dealing with him direct, ASAP, would be the easiest option.
You might be interested in these recent threads about fox problems
http://poultrykeeperforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=9841

And this one is by a member who decided to use a fox control service;
http://poultrykeeperforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=125&t=10570
 
Hello Adrian,
I am the member Marigold referred to who has had constant fox attacks. But it reaches the point where enough is enough. The creature took two of my oldest hens, A stunning white Pekin girl, and a dowdy old Sussex hybrid (a great favourite) in front of me just a few weeks ago - I just did not see it coming.
I found a man in Farnham who tapped and dispatched, and since there are signs of another fox in the garden the trap is at this minute in time about to be rebaited and hopefully used. I never again intend to suffer the distress that picking up 8 or 9 little corpses several times over the years has caused me.

I do not want foxes in my garden never have, do not encourage them and cannot understand people who do. They are wild woodland creatures, let them stay that way. If they do not they must suffer the consequences.
 
Thank you everyone for your comments. I was thinking of trapping the fox as he comes back over 3 times a day now as you suggested he would. I dont want to kill it, i was thinking of trying to trap it, put it in the back of my car and drive it to a forest or something i.e somewhere in the middle of knowwhere. Not sure if that would cause him to starve though as would not know where he is or his cubs to stave if he / she has them ?
 
If you read the second thread I linked to, you'll see we discussed this option when Val bought a trap to try to do just that, and concluded it wasn't a good idea for several reasons. Firstly, the traps you would buy on the Internet are smaller and less sturdy than a professional fox exterminator would use, and thus difficult or impossible to lift into a car boot, and out again the other end, with a struggling fox fighting for its life inside - you could get badly bitten. Secondly, the fox would probably be back home very soon, they have good sense of direction and unless you went on a very long drive you wouldn't lose him. Lastly, it's unethical to do this because you'd just be passing the problem on to another poultry keeper, shepherd etc if the fox did settle down where he was dumped. Much better to let a professional handle the job.
If you intend to re-stock, i think you either have to up your anti-fox protection with electric netting if you want the flock to free range, or build a very secure enclosed run, minimum 2 sq. metres of floor space for each bird you intend to keep, for them to live in permanently. They will be perfectly happy in such a run, mine are safe, happy and comfortable in a setup like that, and I can leave them with no fears of terrible scenes when I get home.
Sorry to say it, but the hard realities of poultry keeping are that you can have have EITHER fox visitors, OR chickens, but not both!
 
As far as I am aware it is illegal to trap a fox and release it elsewhere -it has to be trapped and humanly destroyed. So the only option really is to employ a profession trapper with all the required equipment.

Or, as Marigold says, build a really secure enclosure.
 
Thank you everyone for your feedback, sounds like trapping and moving to a field is not a good idea, I will have to go for electric fencing, which I doubt will be viable because I'm I am in a terraced house and the neighbours wont like it or buy a nice large enclosure, I have restocked with 2 ready to lay hens plus one that survived, was heart but has recovered, plus, 4 baby chickens, the babies are kept in my man cave until they are older, thinking 5 weeks old ? and the others are in their coops, in a small enclosure or roaming free with my 9 year old literally walking about with them. I am roaming ebay etc for a nice size enclosure to handle 7 chickens and 4 ducks in peace. Feel free to point out one you think will be nice. I have a 20ft * 20ft space in my garden, could go more in length but not width as have 70 metres long garden if 20 ft by 20ft is deemed unacceptable ?

Thank you
 
I make that about 36sqm which would be fine for 11, you will struggle to get an enclosure that size the wire ones built around metal poles are normally no more than 3m wide as otherwise the span is to wide to form a roof, you could of course get 2 3x6 runs and place them together. I've never had one of these as I build my own but is this the sort of thing your thinking of or is it too tall http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2016-CC001-GIANT-Metal-Chicken-RUN-6M-X-3M-Walk-in-run-For-Cat-Rabbit-Ducks-Hens-/282075686395?hash=item41ad0565fb:g:2g8AAOSw-jhUEGL7
Why can't you have electric fencing in a terrace?, it will be less noticeable than a big enclosure and unless you are sharing a garden they won't be touching it, you just set the strands up internally out of the reach of their kids etc.
 
Dinosaw

Yes, that was what we was looking at but wife was planning on just one which i doubt is good enough, plus i suspect they are designed to put on a concrete base or at least the edges in a concrete base so foxes cannot dig into it. I have a 6ft end gate but the sides are only your standard 4 foot fences, one being a proper concrete slab and fence on top and one being picket fencing. Strangely the fox did not jump the picket fence even though this would be the most insecure and decided to go over a 5 foot solid wood fence instead. Hence im thinking i cannot put an electric fence either side as they are to low and lets just say one of the neighbours being the one with the solid 4 foot fence has deemed us enemies of the state. Due to all these things, when i picked up the new chickens they had them in a field with very low fences. I asked how the chickens are not attacked and they said because of the 2 alpecas in the same area. So we was even thinking if this is true this could be the answer to let the chickens roam free, any thoughts on this ? i.e can anyone support a fox will not come in an area where their is an alpeca ?. My total garden area is about 70 metres long and 20 ft accross. I would have to check if that is large anough clearly also and could take 2 as im told they should be kept at least as a pair.
 
Yeah foxes won't come into an enclosure with an Alpaca but you need a minimum of an acre of land for Alpacas I'm afraid Adrian and that really is a minimum, I had two on an acre and they grazed the pasture down to stubble. What I would do if I was you is knock in some 6ft wooden posts about a metre inside your boundary and then use electric stranded wire on it at intervals up to 6ft, narrow at the bottom with larger gaps as you go up, that way you could put the strands at a height high enough to stop the fox but also away from your neighbour.
 
Don't know what your budget is like, but you might like to have a look at Omlet walk-in runs, which you can add to and extend as time goes by. Very strong and if you kept the birds in there they'd be safe from foxes.
Mind you, the pics of their runs with chickens in, on beautiful untouched grass, are a tad misleading!
Or of course, make a similar run or runs yourself, to fit the garden and your needs,

https://www.omlet.co.uk/shop/chicken_keeping/walk_in_chicken_run/f/34ba8d58c783244318511590dbb7c97e/

If you ended up with two runs you could separate the ducks, which are very messy and need twice the space compared with chickens. They need different food, layers pellets are unsuitable being too high in protein and calcium, and also access to a little pond or large container of water for them to dip their heads in. This will get very messy and you'll have to tip it out on the grass quite often, winter and summer, which will make the ground into a muddy bog. These conditions aren't good for chickens. It is possible to keep ducks alongside of hens, but preferably in a much larger space than you have and somewhere where they have a running stream which doesn't need emptying. If you kept them separate, you could cover the chicken run and put down Aubiose or similar to keep it dry and clean underfoot.
Also you need to think about how and when you are intending to introduce the chicks to the other adult birds. From about 5 weeks to 18 weeks, they will need a run of their own, out of doors, as they need to be fed on growers pellets from about 8 weeks, when they come off chick crumb, until they're about 18 weeks, which would be the best time to introduce them to the older hens. Any earlier, and not only will they have to eat layers feed, which is too high in calcium for them before they begin egg production, but also they'll be bullied, attacked and possibly even killed by the adults.
What breed are the chicks? Some breeds can be sexed at hatch so you know you've got all 4 girls, but if this isn't so, you need to be prepared for at least two boys, could even be three. Once these start to crow your neighbour is going to be even more unhappy, methinks. Had you planned what to do about them?
Lastly, having re- stocked following the last attack, what have you done to improve security so that this lot will be safe? Once a fox knows where you are, he'll be back, for certain sure, and I notice that on Page 1 of this thread you say he's been seen in your garden up to 3 times a day.
 
Hello. I like the poles with electric wires idea. I am very keen on having free range hens. At the moment the hens can only come out when adults / children are with them. They litteraly stay out with them until it gets late and the hens go back to their coop naturally. As for the young chicks and ducks. I keep them both under 60 watt light in my man cave / insulated cabin for one week and then the ducklings go down to 40 watt light for one more week before being allowed to go into their outside home, which im currently looking for as the young ducks before would not use the soare chicken coupe i had, i.e they would not walk up the wood plank into the actual coope and instead stayed on floor level. Im not sure if i should keep the chicks under 60 watt light for another week as never had chicks before but as they stay indoors for longer than ducks, im going with 60 watts for another week i.e 2 weeks in total untill 40 watts for 2 weeks more and then just the heat of the cabin, unless anyone tells me different on this forumn. I hope chicks are all hens as breeder said they was and he has been breeding from home for 30 years, hence hoping he is correct.
 
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