[plumseverywhere]

Might be a silly question but I can't help noticing that since the sad demise of our lovely cockerel on the 13th November (illness, not fox) we've had 2 fox attacks.
Do cockerels help deter foxes do you think or is this just really coincidence?

[SallyintNorth]

I don't know, plums, but our cockerel has recently disappeared...    So far all hens accounted for and sleeping in the cattle shed, where I think they'll be safe...

[SallyintNorth]

I don't know, plums, but our cockerel has recently disappeared...    So far all hens accounted for and sleeping in the cattle shed, where I think they'll be safe...

Well!  He's not been seen for more than 10 days, so the minute I post that he's gone, he reappears!  No sick note or anything! 


plums, I am so sorry about the massacre of your hens 

It could be that the electric fence was shorted, battery gone/going flat, not quite set up properly... They do take a lot of maintenance, especially as the lower strand has to be low enough to stop him digging under and therefore very prone to shorting out on grass, blown leaves, molehills...    How do you have yours set up - and do you check the charge every day?

[plumseverywhere]

Glad your cockerel is back!

We test it with a thing that you clip on (oh i'm so technical) and it tells you the current/charge or whatever to let you know its working! the fox got in under a loose bit of fencing that is now tent pegged.  We've been too lucky of late and perhaps complacent, never again.

[hughesy]

On the couple of ocasions we've been visited it's been the cockerel that's been killed. Possibly he stood his ground to let the hens get away?  We've only lost birds when they've been out free ranging though, not from the pens which are heras panels with a single strand of electric around the bottom to stop diggers.

[in the hills]

So sorry, Plums. 


Agree with Hughsey. When we had a fox attack, it was the dominant hen (who behaved like a cockerel) that was taken. Think the cockerel would stand his ground, as did my dominant hen, but not deter a determined fox as such. We had a visit while the dog was outside and neighbour working outside when we lived in the town  .

[HappyHippy]

I think I remember reading that cockerels usually stand guard and alert the others to dangers  can't remember where I read it though  So it could be that, or it could just be that the weather is turning and times are hard for all creatures 
Get Tony out there peeing on the perimeter and get bags of hair (ask your local hairdressers for their floor sweepings and put it into old tights) hung round their run/coop - it might help deter Mr Fox.
Sorry about your boy 

[YorkshireLass]

Get Tony out there peeing on the perimeter

Not while the electric fence is running 


I also lost more hens once the cockerel had been polished off, prior to him vanishing I hadn't had a problem

[plumseverywhere]

happy hippy  just read that out to him and when he heard Yorkshire lass's comment he crossed his legs! haha!

Willing to try all the deterrants but (against my usual peace loving persona) I'm just looking forward to the man coming to despatch the main few that we keep seeing. I feel awful for saying it but having seen yesterdays carnage I just want this big one gone and the limping, mange ridden one put out of his misery.

[FiB]

feel your pain plums.. weve lost 8 in the last 2 weeks, all before 3:30pm - and 4 were the almost oven ready cockrels that we hatched in May... so I dont think mR fox discriminates (other than perhps to see which ones are biggest?).  Hunt came over the weekend and took 7 foxes from our small valley with 4 getting away (They suspect we are a release site for 'rescue' city foxes)....  We'll be continue to restrict free ranging untill they get a few more .  Good luck over the coming weeks

[zarzar]

i never forget the ones by a livery yard where we kept our horses they where huge one took a big 3 month old lamb, but they were almost tame as could ride up to within 10ft of them before they would run, although an old one who someone had tried shooting but not done it with the right gun came in to sheep barn on his own and was put out his misery, but we are now weary with all our animals round them as beilieve if one of our horses foaled and it was weak it would take that to.

[HesterF]

No experience yet (thank goodness) but my neighbours have had quite a few fox attacks. The first few the cockerel always survived so they'd come to believe he scared off the fox. Not so, last time the fox got all of them but with the cockerel he just decapitated him and took the head, leaving the body 

H

[Laurasfarm]

When we first started keeping chickens we hatched our first lot.  Six hens and one cock.  When it came to the end of the year we decided to sell him and get a replacement.  The day after he went we had a Harris hawk take a hen and a fox attack the week later.  I don't think the cocks will ever stop a fox but they give good warnings and are just sometimes fodder

[Micki]

I had 2 cockerals and it didn't stop the fox killing my hens last night, the one night i was late locking them in  . I managed to find 2 that had managed to escape out of 9 hens and 2 cockerals. It also had a go at the guinea pigs and has damaged their hutch. Everything has been moved now so it can't get anything else tonight.

[chrismahon]

Same experience as Hughesey. Cockerel stands his ground to protect the hens and gets killed first. In one attack Gandalf stood his ground and was killed an hour before his favourite hen came looking for him and went the same way -they were inseparable so best result. The other hen survived only to be killed a month later in another visit. No way do cockerels put off foxes. If anything they advertise the presence of food and encourage foxes.