Greetings!

[Anthony 1974]

Hello all.
First post on this forum.
Have been keeping chickens for around 7 years now with very few problems until this year.
Started with 3 "hens" - one of which turned out to be Alan!
Along side my original 3 I ended up with 6 rescue hens - very satisfying knowing they spent their last few years in freedom.
Managed to breed from Alan and his girls and ended up with another boy - Charlie son of Alan!!! This led on to 2 runner ducks (another story!)
Charlie ended up with 4 of his own girls. By this time Alan and his 2 girls had passed on as had the battery hens.
Charlie and his girls came to a very swift and distressing end just after Christmas - Raynard managed to find a gap in the wire and took 4 birds and left the body of Roxy cooling in the snow - a daily light raid - he must have been casing the joint for some time and waited for me to drop my guard - I'd let them out just after sun rise one Saturday morning and wham-oh!
A very sad day and I have to say I have missed not having some chickens to care for.
The ducks were also very confused - no Charlie to pester.
Am now in the process of re-building my run and have invested in some building site security fencing which I shall extend a further meter higher with chicken wire.
I will be picking up 6 new girls this coming Saturday and am very excited - this time I am determined to do things right building on my learnings over the last few years - can't face the distress of another fox attack and nor can the kids!
Looking forward to getting involved in this forum and hopefully add my experiences to help others.

Ant
17

 

[Marigold]

Hi Alan, and welcome to the Forum. We shall be glad to have your experience on here. Sorry to hear about the loss of your flock, it must have been devastating for the family. So glad you didn't give in, though, and have reinforcements on the way. There are quite a few threads on here about building runs and preventing predation, which may interest you, though with the security fencing the foxes down your way will need jolly strong teeth. What sort of chickens do you hope to get this time?

 

[Tim]

Hi Ant,

Interesting to read your story. Sounds like you're heading in the right direction with a tougher fence. Foxes can be really cruel and prevention is of course the best line of defence.

Look forward to reading more as you get your new chickens.

Tim

 

[chrismahon]

Welcome to the forum Anthony. Oui, Monsieur Reynard takes his time and waits. Hope all goes well in the future. Secure boundaries is the only answer.