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Author Topic: FOXES !!  (Read 12828 times)

Amandaaj

  • Joined Apr 2011
FOXES !!
« on: April 21, 2011, 09:39:37 pm »
Hi Everyone,
Very sad today went up to my chicken and duck enclosure this morning and duck door was open and only one duck! and lots of feathers :(  he had all blood down his front which when  I picked him up for a cuddle didn't appear to be coming from him, so I can only assume it was from Milly - He wouldn't quack, didn't eat his breakfast and wouldn't go in the pond been so worried all day, a friend said the best thing to do would be to go and get another female duck so I did, got her this afternoon - but he doesn't want to know her- he has gone to bed with the chickens tonight and I have put her to bed on her own in the duck house - feel so sad for both of them- does anyone have any experience of this? I have tried so hard to fox proof the enclosure it seems almost an impossible task any help suggestions would be most grateful and if anyone can tell me how to help the surviving male - I don't know if he is hurt , traumatised broken hearted or all of the above     

doganjo

  • Joined Aug 2012
  • Clackmannanshire
  • Qui? Moi?
    • ABERDON GUNDOGS for work and show
    • Facebook
Re: FOXES !!
« Reply #1 on: April 21, 2011, 10:22:14 pm »
I'm so sorry.  It is heartbreaking to lose animals. 

Could be all of them.  Did you examine him closely for any bites?  The predator might have had a nip at him and he got away.  He will definitely be traumatised.  I would have put the female in with him at night so that in the morning they believe they have always been together.  I'd go and do it tonight.  I would also get him more females.  What breed is he?  If he is a Campbell the recommended ratio is one drake to 7 to 10 females. Not suer about other breeds, but most of them need at elast 2 or 3 ladies.

As to protecting them there is only one sure way, since you can't logically kill all the foxes, you must prevent foxy getting in, even if it means chicken wire buried down into the ground, around the sides, and over the top, and checked regularly.

When you say the duck door was open, do you mean their run gate, or were they inside a shed?  Foxes are clever but I don't think they can open shed doors or even run gates.  Could anyone have let them out?  Were your chickens OK?  If they were, I would suspect a dog rather than a fox - one of my boys is duck obsessed and won't go near my chickens.  The advantage I have is that they are gundogs and retrieve them to me so I can get them back into their run.  They won't kill them intentionally.
Hope that helps
Always have been, always will be, a WYSIWYG - black is black, white is white - no grey in my life! But I'm mellowing in my old age

Fleecewife

  • Joined May 2010
  • South Lanarkshire
    • ScotHebs
Re: FOXES !!
« Reply #2 on: April 22, 2011, 11:59:03 am »
We have had a fox open a pophole, which was held closed by a block of wood which turned on a nail.  Now each pophole has two hefty ways to close it, and the doors are triple locked - twisty thing, catch and loop and wire.  And I let the dogs out every now and then in the night to scare them off in case they are thinking of trying again.  We are hoping that the foxes will take the naughty rabbits which are sneaking in instead of our poultry.

I agree with doganjo that the drake will be traumatised and probably injured, as well as missing his mate - they do mourn.  Hopefully he will recover over the next few days.  He will have gone in with the hens not because he doesn't like his new companion but because he is now frightened of being where he was attacked ie his duckhouse - it's no longer a safe refuge.
« Last Edit: April 23, 2011, 05:47:32 pm by Fleecewife »
"Let's not talk about what we can do, but do what we can"

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Sylvia

  • Joined Aug 2009
Re: FOXES !!
« Reply #3 on: April 22, 2011, 04:51:04 pm »
Poor old duck.You can be sure he'll be back again tonight so be extra vigilant.  I am having a huge enclosure made (at huge expense but I will only have to do it once :)0 This will be eight foot high deer netting, buried at the bottom and with loose barbed wire at intervals along the sides and a whack of barbed wire at the top.
To think the R.S.P.C. bloody A are rearing baby foxes and releasing them wherever they please >:( >:( If the hunt did this there would be an outcry, how cruel, how cruel!! But because it's the R.S.P.C.A. "Ahh, dear little fluffy foxes"
If foxes are a big problem 'phone your local hunt. They can't do anything now until hunting starts again but they may put you in touch with people who can ;)
We have foxes strolling around in the daytime here so nothing is safe.

Hilarysmum

  • Joined Oct 2007
Re: FOXES !!
« Reply #4 on: April 22, 2011, 06:10:04 pm »
Do you still have fox hunts there?  The joys of Brittany, foxes, phone the neighbour he comes over and dispatches them.  Any time of the year.

poppajohn

  • Joined Apr 2011
  • Fenland
  • Grass cutting, what old fellers do!
Re: FOXES !!
« Reply #5 on: April 23, 2011, 04:24:00 pm »
Its always sad to lose birds to these evil .........! Always use slide bolts on doors, at least two on each. Fox proofing is pretty straight forward really. I raise pheasants and manage not to lose any, or any poultry either. It soon becomes second nature. I agree with Sylvia, the bunny huggers were caught two years ago at 4am on neighbours land releasing "rescued foxes". We raised merry hell with them and shot every damned fox they released within a day, it seems they were driving up from Ipswich and releasing them all over the place. Plain white vans as well.
We also have a loopy townie who feeds them near us, a case of not seeing the wood for trees.
Treat them and think of them as large rats, then you wont go wrong.
I hope the drakes better soon.

Hilarysmum

  • Joined Oct 2007
Re: FOXES !!
« Reply #6 on: April 24, 2011, 10:07:06 am »
Leaving aside the stupidity of the act and the absolute cheek of anyone using someone else's land to release vermin without permission ....  the cruelty to the fox which is a town fox used to eating take away junk and easy pickings, suddenly to be shoved out in a country environment with no abandoned cars and useful areas, no McDo and curry houses, they would starve very quickly and shooting is k inder.  I dont understand the mentality.

poppajohn

  • Joined Apr 2011
  • Fenland
  • Grass cutting, what old fellers do!
Re: FOXES !!
« Reply #7 on: April 24, 2011, 11:29:49 am »
Oh these do goody types no know bounds, the RSPCA of course deny it, but you can bet your bottom dollar they sanction the twits doing it. I would gladly show them a coop after a fox attack, then of course I would be had up for abusing their human rights. Forgive me for I am an older man with extreme views, Oh how I long for the return of village gallows......... :o

Hilarysmum

  • Joined Oct 2007
Re: FOXES !!
« Reply #8 on: April 25, 2011, 09:30:27 am »
Nothing to forgive I agree BUT they would just say the fox is doing what comes naturally .... :-\

poppajohn

  • Joined Apr 2011
  • Fenland
  • Grass cutting, what old fellers do!
Re: FOXES !!
« Reply #9 on: April 25, 2011, 11:28:07 am »
Since our local foxhounds were "tamed" and the urban dumping the problems mushroomed around us. Theres just no such thing as a good fox or rat. Everythings out of balance to me, when good keepering takes place you dont have these problems. We have some nice folk near us who have rescued a five acre orchard, its got permissive access and they are trying to establish a nature reserve. They cant understand the hostility from the locals who keep poultry though and dont seem to realise the reality of a managed and stewarded countryside.
Muntjac and roe are destroying crops, geese are grazing and paddling thousands of acres ruining winter barley, moles and rabbits go untrapped.

I blame the RSPB and a shedload of others. Folk should read UN Agenda 21, but then thats another discussion!

Coley

  • Joined Apr 2011
Re: FOXES !!
« Reply #10 on: April 27, 2011, 09:07:40 am »
Nothing to forgive I agree BUT they would just say the fox is doing what comes naturally .... :-\
I agree, foxes are a part of the countryside and if we are going to provide them with lunch in the shape of unsecure coops etc we should blame ourselves not the fox, however I also agree they can be a problem but when this is the case they should be shot, not pursued across the country by weirdos on horses

poppajohn

  • Joined Apr 2011
  • Fenland
  • Grass cutting, what old fellers do!
Re: FOXES !!
« Reply #11 on: April 27, 2011, 01:04:09 pm »
Class war eh?  :o

Coley

  • Joined Apr 2011
Re: FOXES !!
« Reply #12 on: April 27, 2011, 07:19:38 pm »

Nope, just find most horsey types arrogant (around here anyway) I own two shetlands myself but its hard looking down your nose at people when you are sitting on them :)

poppajohn

  • Joined Apr 2011
  • Fenland
  • Grass cutting, what old fellers do!
Re: FOXES !!
« Reply #13 on: April 27, 2011, 07:23:40 pm »
Weel I will let you off then!  :wave:

AengusOg

  • Guest
Re: FOXES !!
« Reply #14 on: April 27, 2011, 08:06:46 pm »
I agree, foxes are a part of the countryside and if we are going to provide them with lunch in the shape of unsecure coops etc we should blame ourselves not the fox, however I also agree they can be a problem but when this is the case they should be shot, not pursued across the country by weirdos on horses

OMG!

 

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