Spleen venting...

[outdoorgirl]

Grr... Sorry to vent my spleen here, but right now I need to talk and I know that many here will sympathise...

We've been keeping poultry for about 4 years now, and yesterday morning I went to do the usual feed and water routine, only to find that a fox had been in and killed all the chickens, and all bar three of the ducks, who had managed to hide on the pond. I know it was a fox, because, apart from being the typical M.O. of a fox (kill everything in sight, never mind what you need to eat), while I was there picking up carcasses, he came back to pick up some more of his kill.

I'm not a active supporter of hunting with dogs, but right now I'd be happy to see just one more foxhunt....

Not really a civilised point of view, I know, but the sight of all those carcasses and feathers tends to cloud your judgement a little...

Grr...

 

[leon-1]

That's a shame ODG, I recall from some of your previous posts that you kept poultry. I hope that you recover from this quickly and that you can get back to keeping poultry again soon.

 

[Stuart]

thats a shame, when i was young my parents used to keep chickens and ducks
we went out into the garden felt the same when we found them all dead, then we discoved that our pet polecats had escaped from their enclosure and were responsible for killing all the poultry.

we found the two polecats lying on top of a pile of dead chickens in the back of the chicken pen, with stomachs too full to move.

you cant be annoyed at them though, its there nature. we kept polecats for catching rabbits we cant expect them to kill one thing but not another.

now many years after that incident i have a fox trying to get into the enclosure where I keep my harris hawk.

my hawk kills rabbits and in turn is hunted by a fox, who in turn I may be forced to kill in order to protect my hawk.

I dont have anything against the fox, I love watching him when he is not trying to kill my hawk, and i will not enjoy killing him if i am unable to drive him away, but death is somthing you cannot seperate from life

 

[flibb]

Thats one of the best posts i have read in a long time Stuart, sums up a very practical view to nature

 

[outdoorgirl]

Yes, Many thanks Stuart - I am slowly calming down, especially with my fella now back from his weekend away. A good hug does wonders sometimes!

I've never had problems with the death of animals - some of the poultry we've kept have been destined for the oven, and we've killed out a total of 12 pigs in our time, it just all seemed so senseless. We've lost a few ducks over the past few months to a local buzzard, and I really didn't mind that so much. The silly ducks would never roost in their house, so of course one would get taken every now and then overnight while they were sleeping. One every now and then, I could cope with, but losing the lot in one go to an animal who would not actually eat them all just rubbed me up the wrong way.

We'll take a break for a while and sort out the fencing, give the houses a good clean and maintenance, then look at getting some more for the new laying season in March next year. Since we don't use artifical light or heat, they don't lay much over the winter, so there would be little point in replacing them now, at the end of the laying season.

Thanks all for your comments.

Pip
(ODG)

 

[Stuart]

I know its painful but the fox was just taking advantage of the situation in the manner that has kept it alive so far.

the fox just knows that it has to kill its prey whenever the opportunity presents itself, this is an unusual situation for the fox to find itself in. its very rare that it has the chance to kill more then it can eat.

the mentality which keeps a fox alive is not one which requires it to make judgments about how much it actually needs to kill to survive, its usually enough of a struggle just to find enough food in the first place

the majority of us have been brought up in a culture which attempts to project human values on the natural world. only when we remember that in nature there is no right or wrong, no malice or compassion, only the desire to maintain ones existance and reproduce, that we can come to terms with the natural world we live in.

these are the thoughts that I find most comforting

 

[bushman762]

firstly odg, I empathise with your loss.

secondly stuart, very well put...the fox was just being a fox like nature intended.

Best Regards,

 

[Spacemonkey]

The fox kills the lot as it is an opportunist. The trouble arises when it returns to collect the rest and gets seen and spooked off. The assumption is of mindless slaughter- the reality is that the fox can only carry one at a time but due to disturbance cannot always collect the rest. Still gutting though when it happens to your own stock.

 

[Rebel]

When I lived on a farm I too lost my chickens to foxes. While the fox is only doing what foxes do I saw no reason to let him do it to my property, the same as I wouldn't let rats and mice eat from my food store either.

I figure it's my job as a human to protect my food and livestock from predators in whatever way I can. If I go to the trouble to feed, vaccinate and raise livestock I'm not going to shrug my shoulders and say, "that's nature" if some predator tries to take them away from me.

 

[Jack]

Happens to us every year and this time of year it is normally cubs wondering around trying to find their own territory.

I don't agree with fox hunting but I dare say I shoot more foxes than the hunt catches and once in a while I will thin them out. The problem is that people do tend to blame the fox when it isn't his fault. The most common fault is that people do not fence their birds in well enough which then allows the fox to find his way in. You will notice that a fox will kill more than he needs.......well, this isn't the case. A fox will kill and come back to pick up the rest, the only reason that we find dead all over the place is because we have discovered them before he has time to return, we have watched a fox bury chicken like a dog does a bone, we have also watched her come back for 12 chicken that she killed.

I have chased a fox with a live hen in his mouth and grab his tail which made him drop the hen, bless her. A fox will take advantage if stabling over a huge larder and will do what he can to survive, it is very much like someone who is starving bumping into a supermarket...............

 

[Tony]

He he, last week I was feeding foxes to doing my part to keep them nice and healthy, Gopher was on the menu! I’m in Alberta and on the family ranch the Gophers are a pain so they are happy to have foxes here to hunt them. Any Gophers that we nail are food for them. Here the fox is a friend, it’s weird how they’re perceived depending on how they influence our environment.

 

[Lithril]

My grandparents have a friend near Romsey that had a fox get in over the last few days, killed all but about 6 of the chickens and all the ducks that were there too.


At this time of year they'll stop nothing to get food for the cubs, I've known of them rip the bottom out of a wooden hen house to get inside.

 

[outdoorgirl]

I have to admit that the loss of our poultry was largely our own fault - we use an electric fence on battery power, and the battery had run out. The fox was then able to chew a big hole in the netting in order to get in...

It's a hard lesson, but a very valuable one.

 

[spamel]

Wire it up to the National Grid, that'll keep the little monkey out!!

I also had a friend who kept chickens and ducks in Plymouth, in fact she may still do as we sort of lost contact. Anyway, she also had a visit from Fantastic Mr Fox who destroyed her chickens completely. This was were she found out that chickens have their eggs inside them all at different stages of 'egginess'. Apparently it looks quite bizarre. Fortunately her ducks were OK, but they were then stolen a while later. The ducks were kept for the hell of it but the chickens paid for themselves as she sold her free range eggs to people in the street which paid for the feed and straw for the coop.

 

[outdoorgirl]

We had to do an 'autopsy' on a chicken that died inexplicably the first year we had them. Some of the smallholding magazines provide some very useful information on that subject. That was when we discovered the ovulation cycle of chickens...!

It really is wierd, seeing yolks of different sizes in the tubes (forget the name just now), going down to the either partially or fully formed egg at the end...

I've since been able to confidently expound upon the subject to a vegan freind, trying (in vain) to convince her that the egg laid by a chicken in a cockerel-free environment is not a 'pre-chicken' - it can never be a chicken, because there's no cockerel to fertilise it before it's laid and therefore it's food once it's been laid... You are not exploiting the chicken, force feeding it in order to lay eggs; as long as it hasn't been kept in artificial light/heat conditions for unnatural periods of time you are not interrupting it's normal lifestyle, and it's going to lay the eggs anyway! If you don't eat them they're going to waste!

 

[Roving Rich]

Mmmmm Chicken periods my favorate

Have you still got pigs Pip ? I'd have thought a pig might deter a fox ?(?but what do I know )

Cheers
Rich

 

[MalIrl]

My sympathies, ODG. We've had two lots of chickens cleaned out by foxes in the last few years, and this Summer another couple of visits, just taking one at a time. In one instance our cockerel (Shaggy) had his moment of glory, beating off the fox until one of us got out and chased it away!
However, in all cases it was fence problems that allowed the b***er to do his thing. I'm not adverse to levelling the odd fox (we do a bit of that for game preservation anyway), but in the end of the day good fencing 7 foot high and 1 foot underground is the best way to peace of mind.

Slan,
Mal

 

[Bob Hurley]

It's a shame leghold traps aren't allowed. A professional trapper can be as selective as he wishes (you can't catch two at once in a leghold), and if he knows his trade he can deliver the live culprit to you with no more than ruffled fur and a sore foot (not a broken leg), to do with as you wish.

Sometimes the old ways truly are the best.