Foxes appear in bedtime stories, quotable parables, and movies, where they are portrayed as clever tricksters, sly, cunning, and natural hunters. For chicken owners, foxes are a nightmare. These poultry predators stalk live prey as they wait for an opportunity to pounce and grab it. Foxes work around the most common protection mechanisms.
Install six feet tall, 15 inches deep fence around a roofed and wooded chicken coup. The best times for chicken to forage are mid-morning to mid-afternoon. Keep the chickens in the fenced area during the day and lock them up at night. Clear anything a fox may use for cover as it approaches the fence.
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The Life of Foxes
Foxes are captivating creatures that have captured the imagination of humans for centuries. With their bushy tails, pointed ears, and cunning nature, these adaptable animals have managed to thrive in various parts of the world. In this blog section, we will delve into the lives of foxes in America and England, exploring their unique ways of living and highlighting intriguing insights into their behavior.
The Red Fox in America:
The red fox (Vulpes vulpes) is one of the most widespread fox species found in America. Renowned for their beautiful reddish-orange fur and bushy tails, these clever canids have adapted to a range of habitats, including forests, grasslands, and even suburban areas.
One of the most remarkable aspects of the red fox’s way of life is its adaptability. They are opportunistic omnivores, capable of surviving on a diverse diet that includes small mammals, birds, insects, fruits, and even scavenged human food. This adaptability has allowed them to thrive in various environments, including rural and urban settings.
Red foxes are primarily nocturnal, using their sharp senses, including excellent hearing and keen eyesight, to navigate their surroundings. They are skilled hunters, employing a combination of stealth, patience, and quick bursts of speed to capture their prey. Additionally, red foxes are known for their playful behavior, engaging in games with their siblings or offspring, which help develop their essential hunting skills.
Foxes in England:
In England, the red fox (Vulpes vulpes) is also the most common species of fox. Similar to their American counterparts, English red foxes have adapted remarkably well to various habitats, including urban environments. In fact, urban foxes are a common sight in many English cities, showcasing their ability to coexist alongside humans.
English red foxes exhibit similar behaviors and adaptations as their American counterparts. They are opportunistic omnivores, thriving on a diet that includes small mammals, birds, insects, fruits, and occasional human food. Their nocturnal nature and hunting skills remain consistent, allowing them to navigate the English countryside and urban areas with agility and prowess.
How To Keep Your Chickens Safe From Foxes
Because your chickens forage during the day and sleep during the night, your safety area should include fencing and a chicken coop. While no fence is totally safe, a good fence provides a safe area for chickens during the day and offers an additional layer of protection during the night.
Ensure A Solid And Secure Chicken Coop To Keep The Fox Away
A solid, safe, and comfortable chicken coop can do wonders for your flock’s health, happiness, and well-being. As you built it, I assume that you have considered the best location and measurements for your chicken coop. We will therefore look at adjustments required to turn your existing structure into a coop that is safe from foxes.
Setting out to protect the chickens from predators means that the coop must anticipate attacks by various predators. Snakes and rodents from below, aerial predators from above, and larger predators, like foxes, weasels, and even dogs, through any available opening. For that reason, the coop must have a firm roof, solid floor, and robust walls and doors.
Foxes are superb climbers and diggers and may use their teeth to crack fences that are not strong enough. They may even hide behind uncollected rubble and garbage and wait for the opportunity to pounce on a chicken. Preventing or delaying the fox’s movement may give you enough time to intercept the attacker and end the attack.
The chicken coop door can be made from plywood, which is strong and cheaper than hardwood. The door frame must be solid and unshakeable, and the door must fit into it perfectly. Make sure that door is tall and wide enough for you to walk in and out comfortably when you fetch eggs.
The door’s latch and hinges should be robust and hard to break. While foxes will not be able to open the door, raccoons, for example, are known for their ability to turn and pull doorknobs. If you surround the run with a fence, you can keep the coop door open during the day while the chickens forage around and lock it at night, using a bolt, with or without a lock.
Ensure A Strong Enough Fence To Keep Foxes Out
Fences are not a cheap option, but they offer the best possible protection for your chickens.
Good fences are tall hard wire mesh buried deep in the ground. Additional safety features include an above or below-ground apron that prevents the fox from digging under the fence. Some fences have a tilted top section that makes climbing even more difficult.
The first rule of thumb is the age-old saying that chicken wire is best for keeping chickens from getting out rather than preventing animals from getting in. Chicken wire is best used to cover the top of the coop and the run – as protection from aerial predators. It is also perfect if you keep some chickens separate from the others.
Your best choice for solid fencing is welded wire, sometimes known as hardware cloth.
In addition to foxes, 1/2” welded wire will keep out coyotes and other large predators, as well as smaller ones like weasels and snakes. Welded wire fence is also thick enough to prevent foxes from chewing through.
The fence is designed to keep foxes out by blocking their access, irrespective of how they try to get in. A six feet tall fence makes climbing quite difficult while burying the fence in a 15-20 inches deep trench will make digging yet another challenge for the fox.
Another way to prevent foxes from burrowing under the fence is laying welded wire horizontally on the ground, attached to and alongside the fence. This so-called apron puts an additional obstacle in front of the fox, who, like other opportunistic predators, may hopefully decide to look for food elsewhere.
Install Electric Fences And Lights
Electric fences are effective in chasing foxes away. The electric current fences emit is strong enough to repel the predator without significantly hurting it. Having lights in the coup and around the run would make it easier to detect the fox and add to the general visibility of the yard.
Install Motion-Activated Sprinklers
Motion-activated sprinklers have shown great promise by detecting the presence of an animal near the chicken run fencing and spraying water at the animal. They are praised for scaring animals away without hurting them and are reasonably priced. However, animals tend to get used to motion-activated sprinklers eventually.
Use Various Flock and Livestock Guardians
Using various guard animals to protect the chicken from foxes by chasing them away or, at least, causing enough noise to alert the chicken owner is an effective way of repelling foxes and other predators. Livestock Guardian Dogs (LGD) are excellent livestock guardians, as they were bred to be.
Roosters make excellent flock guardians because they follow their most natural task by protecting ‘their’ hens. Even if they are not a match for a fox, they may create enough commotion to alert the owner. On the downside, roosters may be aggressive toward anyone they consider a threat, like people, pets, and other animals.
In this article we deal with all the advantages and disadvantages of keeping chickens with roosters.
Geese are credited with saving the Roman Empire by making enough noise to raise the alarm when the city of Rome was about to be overrun by its enemies. Gees are territorial; they consider the run and its habitants as their own. They are also excellent at recognizing aerial predators. A single goose is enough for the entire flock.
In this article you’ll learn if geese are good to keep with chickens, and here are the 13 best breeds of geese for beginners.
Other, less common, livestock guardians include donkeys, who are known to scare fixes and even coyotes and dogs away. Other guardians are Alpacas and Llamas, pigs, goats, and cows. These, however, may not be attached to a specific flock, or they may ignore them outright.
How to scare away a fox? What deters foxes?
Since foxes are cautious animals, you can use a variety of methods to make your yard as deterrent to foxes as possible.
- Strong odors: foxes have a very keen sense of smell and they avoid extreme odors or smells that they associate with danger. these include: Hukinol, dog urine and cat urine.
- Ultrasonic marten deterrent: Even though humans cannot hear ultrasound for martens and also foxes these shrill sounds triggered by motion detectors, suddenly are quite a shock after they think twice about coming back.
- Unexpected sounds: generally unexpected sounds can unsettle a fox, this can be easily achieved with a wind chime or sound chime.
- Motion Detector: A motion detector that automatically turns off lights can also deter a fox from continuing to approach the chicken coop.
- Fox monitoring: If all else fails, you can install a wildlife camera. This way you can learn the behaviors and paths the fox uses and take defensive measures at those exact locations.
Conclusion
Foxes are natural predators and skilled hunters. If a fox detects chickens, it will use its powerful skills – digging, climbing, and chewing, and work its way around any obstacles set in its way to snatch chickens, chicks, or eggs. Stopping foxes require that strong fences, walls, doors, and latches are installed and various flock and livestock guardians are used.
Chicken coops and the fencing around them are designed as structural barriers from predators and a safe location for chickens. Owners know that an investment in infrastructure will benefit their chickens in the long run.
Frequently asked questions
When does the fox attack chickens?
Foxes are usually crepuscular and nocturnal, but when hunger is particularly great or the opportunity presents itself, foxes will hunt during the day.
On a yearly basis, fox attacks occur primarily during the winter months when food is scarce or when they are raising their young, in the spring around March through June.
Did a fox kill my chickens?
A fox attack in a chicken coop is usually characterized by a number of dead chickens killed with a throat or neck bite. The fox then carries its prey into its den to eat it at its leisure.
Foxes tend to engage in “overkill,” also called “surplus killing,” by killing significantly more animals in one attack than they can eat at one time. Due to the panicked heart fluttering, the chickens repeatedly trigger the fox’s prey-catching reflex and it repeatedly attacks them.
Another variant of the fox attack is not noticed at the beginning, because the fox does not kill several chickens at once, but only one chicken, which quietly disappears.
Does the fox always come back?
Once the fox learns in which garden he can quickly and easily steal chickens, he will almost certainly try again. On this point, prevention is important.
If your chickens are in a secure chicken coop and well fenced run, he will realize there is nothing to steal from you.
Foxes are very loyal animals with a fixed territory and can live up to 10 years. So if a fox has been sighted in your neighborhood, you can assume that you will remain neighbors for the next few years.
What smells scare foxes away?
For foxes, their nose is an important aid in hunting and they avoid strong odors. As deterrents, hukinol – a substance that smells like human sweat, and dog and cat urine are often successful with foxes.
Scaring agents aim to drive away wildlife and pests without killing or injuring them.
What do foxes eat?
Foxes are omnivores and they eat insects, worms, rodents such as mice, birds, wild rabbits, also berries and fruits and even do not stop at carrion and waste. However, they prefer to eat meat and go hunting for it at dawn and dusk.
How high can a fox jump?
Foxes are quite athletic animals and can jump up to 6 foot/ 2 meters high and 16 foot/ 5 meters far under certain circumstances. Therefore, fences for fox defense should be at least 180cm high.
