Subscriber Letters

Tom : Your last newsletter had a report from Mari regarding a fox attack. I am plagued by urban foxes and they have no fear of humans. Normally my girls are behind electric chicken netting and a double line barrier of normal livestock electric fencing running at a height of four and ten inches. While moving the run from one part of the garden to another, I let the chooks out. A fox dived amongst them and took the first one from between my feet. Chasing it, I made it drop the bird in order to escape, but it didn't actually run away. It merely doubled back and tried it's luck again with another one. Now I was the one running round like a headless chicken as the fox dodged up and down the hedge between me and my next door neighbour, nipping out to grab another chook when I was looking in the other direction. Each time I got within a couple of feet of the fox, it dropped the chicken but I was unable to coral the birds and keep the vermin at bay. Fortunately another neighbour was having building work done and three guys hopped over the fence. They managed to drive off the fox while I rounded up all but one of the birds and put them in the chicken house. The fox came back twenty minutes later and made a grab for the last one, a Silver Sussex. Luckily for both of us she's a substantial lady and although she lost a lot of feathers from her back I was able to rescue her from the fox too and Charlie only got a mouthful of black feathers.

The local council will not remove urban foxes, in spite of there being five living on a smallish building plot and under a couple of neighbours' sheds. I had thought foxes were territiorial, but these five seem to get along together, despite living close enough together to share a bad case of Mange (only the old dog fox looking healthy but I think he doesn't actually live underground with the others). Sadly we have misguided neighbours further up the street who actively encourage the brutes by feeding them by hand or leaving food out for them.

The point is, however, even letting them out under "supervision" won't necessarily stop a fox attack although it can limit your losses to one bird/attack. Tom

Peg : I have had my chickens a year now and did not realize how they would tear up flowerbeds!...I did fence most of the flowerbeds off with what I had on hand, 18 inch poultry netting and 24 inch woven wire. In some beds that could not be fenced I laid poultry netting or woven wire on the ground over the area then anchored it with wire stakes or rocks. A chicken would only try once to scratch in the area and never come back! Problem solved!..

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