Protecting my Girls

[NorthernRaider]

Waste of time effort, money and loss of a beautiful predator, kill the fox and another will move in very quickly, you have to fox proof your chook house. In our Parish Magazine there was an article by someone over Butterwick way who says the neighbouring property kept free range chooks and the owner fought a non stop war against foxes, killed loads others moved into the area. when the chook keeper moved away the neighbour noted that in a year the wild rabbit population declined massively, obviously the foxes stopped picking on Chicken Little and were after Brer Rabbit.

Back even further the vicar where we used to live fought a battle for years with RATS getting into the Vicarages Dovecotes kiling birds and stealing eggs, then an Urban fox moved in and the RAT population was decimated, so I think finding a natural balance coupled with stock chook defences is probably best because RATS are harder to keep away than Foxes and RATS bring diseases with them.