Visits From a Fox

When I started my chicken growing adventures I knew there were lots of predators where I lived so I did what I could at the time to minimize them as best I could.  I choose to build small mobile pens that were covered to prevent hawks and eagles from eating my chickens.  I wanted to keep the floors open so the chickens could scratch and peck to their hearts content.  Making the pens mobile meant that I could "pasture" raise them (though my yard doesn't have much pasture as of yet).

My plans changed the other night after I heard a fox yipping for several hours close to my house.  When I woke up the next morning I found that it had dug under one of my mobile pens and snatched four of my young chickens in the night.  I know it was a fox because he was hanging around the front yard when I first looked out my window that morning.   I knew he would be back since he found such an easy meal so I got to work on making the small chicken tractor more predator proof.

The fix was a simple one.  I bought a roll of chicken wire that was wide enough to span the bottom of the run.  I unrolled it flat on the ground and then moved the run over the wire so that I could fasten the wire to the bottom using staples.  Now the fox could dig all it wants under that pen and it won't be able to get in.  In fact it has returned every night since to attempt to dig under the pen again, but it has not been successful and the remaining four young chickens are still safe.  I still wish that the chicks could scratch the soil more, but they will have to settle for pecking the grass that pokes up through the wire.  I am just happy that I won't be losing the rest of them to this persistent fox.

My concern now was that he would turn his attentions to the older chickens since he can't get to the smaller ones.  I don't think it would be foolish enough to dig into the big pen with the rooster in it, but he might try to get at a couple of hens that I have in another small pen. I decided that I should have another layer of protection for their safety, so I bought a new fence charger for the electric fence that runs around the yard.  The one that was lent to me last year stopped working some time last winter, but I hadn't really needed the extra protection until now.  I had to fix a few breaks in the wire and clear off the tumbleweeds that blow into the fence daily, but after a little while I got it up and running.  Hopefully the fox will get the hint when it visits next and move along to new hunting grounds.