The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Poultry & Waterfowl => Topic started by: bloomer on December 22, 2014, 02:07:52 pm
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absolutely gutted my breeding stock of cream legbars were attacked last night, they were in a temporary pen which admittedly was less secure than my permanent pens but am still gutted they were stock i had sourced from multiple places to get good genetics for this years hatching programme and now i have none. I still have my pen of marans but i don't have much luck hatching them...
also the legbars were my best layers for my egg sales :-(
more expense in the spring to replace them all...
going to cry in the corner for a while then work out how to protect what's left even better!!!
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Oh, David, so sorry to hear this. It's so upsetting :(
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Am so sorry to hear that, foxes are evil, I had a few problems with foxes last year, they kept on eating half my flock of lambs, I wondered why I had so few, I moved them to be on the farm, as I had them grazing rented land, and the numbers increased dramatically and I had a ton of lambs this year, fantastic! :)
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not helping my head that the kids were very attached to the cockerel in that group...
have upset small people as well now... they didnt see the carnage thankfully...
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Oh no David, that's so horrible. I'm still livid from losing my beautiful hens last spring. Being on the warpath against the foxes is the way to go. Get the kiddies to help.
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i can see me trapping the hill as soon as i get christmas out of the way but i do have to find a way to terminate the buggers if i catch them...
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Foxes are evil
Foxes aren't evil. Being evil is a human condition. Foxes are foxes. It's up to us to protect our livestock.
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Foxes are evil
Foxes aren't evil. Being evil is a human condition. Foxes are foxes. It's up to us to protect our livestock.
i actually agree with rosemary here, i fully accept i screwed up most of my pens are like fort knox the temporary pen wasn't anywhere near as good and i hadn't got round to finishing the new pen for this group so i was asking for trouble... still upsetting and i will do what i can to remove the problem in the future but the fox was just doing what foxes do...
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Bags of human hair round the pens, you and the boys need to 'scent mark' the boundaries :innocent:
Failing that, get a couple of pigs ;) the smell keeps them away. You've seen how secure our chooks aren't.......we have foxes all around, they don't come near :thumbsup:
So sorry about your hens :'(
:hug: From all of us xxx
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Wonder if someone locally has despatched the normal local fox and you've had a new one move in? Thats usually the reason for a new fox attack. Very sad :( Hope you get sorted in the new year
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So sorry, David. {{{hugs}}} to you all :hug:
It's worth letting your local hunt know what's happened. Sometimes they'll be asked to clear a fox or foxes for a local farmer, and all intelligence about foxes in the area helps. They may also decide to exercise the hounds near your pens, which would provide some additional deterrence.
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i wish, our garden ends in an enclosed valley thats heavily wooded, the only building behind us is a huge paper factory none of the gardens on the hill are fenced so wildlife abounds (we get roe deer on the hill as well) we never saw evidence of the fox till today although i always assumed they could be there as access is so easy... our permanent pens have concrete skirts around the outside of the wire so not digable not so for the temp pen...
i have reviewed the other pens and only found a couple of very minor weak points which have been reinforced, so hopefully any more visits will be pointless for mr fox, i will also take our dog down to that part of the garden more often (not his bit normally) to allow him to make doggy smells etc.
i will call the local hunt for advice though as they may know if its a bigger problem etc locally.
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Foxes are evil
Foxes aren't evil. Being evil is a human condition. Foxes are foxes. It's up to us to protect our livestock.
What can I say, I know its humanizing!
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A couple of points -
Rosmary is quite right, foxes are not 'evil' as such. They are merely opportunistic. However, you do get 'problem' foxes which cause far greater levels of carnage than others, and need removing if you want a peaceful life for your livestock.
Depending on your local hunt, they are often about as much use as a chocolate teapot in removing a fox problem. Your local terrier man, rifle man or such may be a far better option.
Pigs DO NOT deter foxes in any meaningful way, i've had poultry taken from amongst the pigs and have also found plenty of fox scat in the pig pens.
The scent idea works sometimes, but a determined fox isn't stupid, they know that human habitation smells of humans, its the actual humans they are scared of (and even then, not all of the time!).
The only way to deal with a fox problem is to shoot it / snare it / dig it / dog it / trap it.
I'd advise everyone to leave a permanently set fox trap near your poultry.
My condolences Bloomer, one killed my geese recently and it really made me very sad and angry!
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Oh no, how horrible, so sorry about you hens... :hug:
Hope you can deter any further visits.
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:( Sorry to hear that. If I had any Cream Legbars I'd offer you some.
Beth
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Yes - sorry to hear about your loss. We have started having regular visits from the fox too. Here's one from yesterday morning :-(
Daylight Fox Attack / Free Range Chicken Raid In Broad Daylight Caught on CCTV Camera (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVoeNJBlfvI#ws)
Foxes are like the Taliban. He will know exactly what your routine is and what your defences are. He'll sit and wait until you slip up and then exploit your own weaknesses without even trying.
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Sorry to hear that Bloomer. Its a horrid thing for a chicken keeper to have a fox attack. I found the only way to be completely secure was with electric poultry netting on a mains energiser rather than battery, but it sounds as though your usual pens are working well. Apparently foxes call each night and check for weak defences, or even in the day when they have cubs. So just one day/night of a little less vigilance gives them the chance they were waiting for
There is a girl in Herefordshire who had some of my Cream Legbar Breeding stock which are proving excellent layers and easy to hatch. Her number is on my old Blue-Eggs website which I have kept running.
Are you dry incubating the Marans eggs. That was the only way I ever had good success rates, but damp weather can tend to negate that unless you are hatching indoors, and even then it has an effect.
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Know how you feel. I lost a pen of leghorns earlier in autumn after raising them all year. They were just about to lay! It's sickening when you see it. I see it as my fault. Didn't do a good enough job of keeping the fox out. As it is he got trapped inside the electric net by the look of it and spent a long time trying to get out with much digging and scraping around the outside. Didn't take a single bird, just killed them all. Again, my fault.
You can't bitter about the actions of a wild animal, they are just doing what they do. You have to work harder to keep them out. In my case I wasn't checking the electric net often enough and it was shorting on a post so wasn't working well. Lesson learned and a second electric fence installed around the field boundary.
Foxes are an important part of our environment and killing them is only going to result in another moving in who may not be trained to your electric fence.
Last people I would call is the hunt. I spend enough time defending my stock from their out of control, marauding hounds and fixing hedges after the idiots who follow them have clambered all over them.
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No they aren't evil, no more than my dogs are - but they go into a killing frenzy - just as my dogs would given the chance. I don't hate my dogs, because I can control them (to an extent anyway :innocent:) but I really hate foxes, and wolves, and especially the stupid people who feed them thinking they're cute cuddly things! They are killers - not evil in the human sense of the word, but still killers. :rant:
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I'd advise everyone to leave a permanently set fox trap near your poultry.
So practically speaking, what would you bait a permanent fox trap with?
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well i have some dead chickens i could use...
sorry thats poor taste but its my thread and im feeling a bit better still gutted but i have stopped sulking for now at least!
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And we have a trap you can borrow if you wish, though as yet I've never caught a fox in it.
The reason for my question is that in the summer, the bait goes maggotty within a few days, hence I'm curious to know what bait one might use in a permanently set trap?
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This time we have used one of the chickens left over - but I agree - not so easy in the summer when they all go maggoty in a couple of days.
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When the fox wiped out 13 of ours we used our dead chickens to bait the trap... first of all leaving them near the trap and eventually we had 1 in the back compartment. I know it seems weird using them but it felt like their deaths were not completely in vain this way.
I should add that my 8 year old found our decimated flock, not long after her pet lamb was PTS after a dog attack (she actually suffered alopecia from stress bless her!). Eventually a stinky, deer head lured the fox in, he was swiftly and humanely despatched and our current flock live on.
Worst part, I found when you have children , is that feeling of it being our fault and their upset is due to our lack of fencing. Then I felt guilty that our chickens had suffered due to human negligence and then I felt really hacked off that someone was found dumping city foxes on land next to ours and neighbours were feeding the things ::)
To the fox, he is just visiting a supermarket for food for his family I suppose!
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I'd advise everyone to leave a permanently set fox trap near your poultry.
So practically speaking, what would you bait a permanent fox trap with?
I used to use electric fencing and foxes never came near it, it also kept one of my mischevious dogs away, which I sold eventually, which kept on trying to kill my hens.
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We have lost a few [size=78%]Ducks and Turkeys to the fox in the last month. As gutted as I was I always consider it to be my fault as has been said in earlier post it is up to me to protect what what I am rearing. I consider it to be an occupational hazard as I like my poultry to free range, but it is usually down to poor fencing that lets the bugger in!!! I changed all my electric fencing last year after 2 attacks, nothing better than hearing a fox squeal when they find that a new strand of wire has stopped them getting supper!!![/size]
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Most be that time of year. Just had the local free range chook farm on the phone again.
16000 hens.
Started losing a few a week ago.
Had one big dog fox in the trap pretty much straight away, thought that would sort it. It didn't. Went out with the lamp, sat up and had a squeak, three sets of eyes came in. One got too bold and met her maker, but the other two were not playing ball.
Still having problems, so i'm off again now to see if I can catch up with the others.
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:( So sorry - it's that horrid sinking feeling as you realise what has happened. We had two lucky cockerels who managed to escape the marauding fox somehow whilst their brothers lay dead around them. The kids have been more upset by my killing of the turkeys than they were by the fox though.
On the subject of traps, my friends set one having lost a series of chickens to the fox and ended up catching the next door neighbour's poodle (apparently a tiny boy but she breeds enormous labradoodles). I don't believe the dog has been going after the chickens but the picture of them finding a poodle in the trap is still enough to make me giggle.
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LOL. Please tell me there are photos!!
The only thing we've ever caught in our trap is our cat. You could see the footprints in the snow as he carefully padded all around it and checked it out, followed by an almighty panic and sprint straight out through the mesh on the side (we made it just big enough for a cat, having seen this coming!). He's never been near it again though.
Using fox killed chickens does seem the perfect thing to do. We actually had half a dozen of them in our freezer at one point but since each one only lasted a few days before it got revolting, it was hardly a permanent solution!
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Sorry to hear. I know the menace foxes are (not evil, but unquestionably a menace) me & my dad have spent most of both our lives controlling them. Call it a live hate thing.
Do you keep dogs David? Any breed.
In terms of bait that doesn't attract maggots (well quite as much as raw meat) you have to remember fox are omnivorous. Bait of peanut butter, jam (but get wasps) or using pike attractor from angling shop, spray it around entrance, very stinky stuff.
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David has one dog, an old boy, but I have four Brittanys of varying ages and it doesn't stop foxes coming round and checking my place! I lost ducks and hens a couple of years ago from a paddock that my dogs regularly run free in.
We used to have 24 acres, hens, ducks, sheep, cattle - and a big German Wirehair as well as 6 Brittany's - she was sent out every night around 11.30pm, we used to watch her do a circuit of the fields, and next day we'd often see a fox strolling down through the fields. Hester would have killed any fox that came near and often came back with smaller vermin. They have no fear, not a bloody care in the world! I hate them.
So good on you for keeping them under controil
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Our Murphy chased a fox that was stalking alongside the chicken run at 4pm yesterday (again) He's getting very good at seeing them off, including one that was firmly attached to the leg of a newborn lamb last spring.
What the fox didn't realise was that murphy was most likely wanting to play ::)
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You and Murphy are going to get banged up for illegal fox hunting!
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;D that did cross my mind
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Just be sure to shout "No Rover!" so everyone can hear you, should keep you right with plod
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You will have a better response if you shout "No Rover" in a high pitched, encouraging tone. Guaranteed to call him off.
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You and Murphy are going to get banged up for illegal fox hunting!
No you wont, not unless murphy has one more canine pal join him. Besides, you were just exercising your dog... ????
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I wasn't entirely serious Ben!
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at the risk of sounding a pratt it always amazes me that people spend lots on getting what breeds they want...spends loads on a shed...spend lots on feed etc BUT NEVER BUY AN ELECTRIC FENCE. nothing else will do. shooting one will let others in.... you will never shoot them all but a bloody good belt of electric and fox will not return
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at the risk of sounding a pratt it always amazes me that people spend lots on getting what breeds they want...spends loads on a shed...spend lots on feed etc BUT NEVER BUY AN ELECTRIC FENCE. nothing else will do. shooting one will let others in.... you will never shoot them all but a bloody good belt of electric and fox will not return
What about shooting the fox and then putting up electric fencing after?
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Electric netting is very good and once a fox has been whacked they won't try again. Having said that, it does take some effort to make sure it's always working well. I lost 9 leghorns in a 50m net last year. Not sure how he got in, must have clean jumped it, maybe a cub. What I do know is that it took him ages to get out as there was digging and scraping all around the inside of the net. He must have had multiple shocks but escaped in the end. Didn't take a single bird, just killed them so I'm hoping he's gone away with an empty tummy and a sore head and won't be back. I did re-double my efforts on grass shorting and also put a 5 strand electric stock fence around the outside of all the pens as well so it's a double barrier.
But generally, electric is the way to go, if not 100% infallible.
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a fence is not enough... you need 1 or 2 trip wires around the fence... 1 about a foot off the ground and a foot away from the fence,,,, if you also put a 2nd trip wire up about a foot away from the first theres no way a fox will jump or dig in.............. i dont even use a full fence anymore just ordinary fencing with 3 trip wires arond it....that way the wires never short out