fox took one girl

I am sorry to hear of your loss and please don't punish yourself. Unfortunately if a fox really wants them they will try everything (usually when they have young) they can dig, jump and bite through wire. The only thing that helps me is I physically shut my lot up in their coups at night and those are in a enclosure.

Thanks for the answers abd advice. We couldn't dig  a trech as this was making the neighbours gravel boards drop. Do we've pulled up an old patio & laid the slabs butting up to the concrete gravel boards. They are 2ft wide into the run. They are very heavy so we've laid a 2nd layer of slabs ontop. I don't know what else to do as we cannot fox proof from our neighbours side, only into the run.

Electric fence isn't possible as we've concreted the posts for the run in & it's not possible to move it. I found the poor girlie - she had got behind the water but up against the hen house. In my panic to check how many hens were left & get the run secured, I hadn't looked behind there. She only had  very tiny graze to her skin but was saxly dead. I guess the snock killed her. I presume as I came out the back door, it wretched thing was scared off. DH says he thinks the hole under the fence is too small for a fox - it was about 4 inches wide by 3 inches deep. He also couldn't understand how the hen got away & nothing followed the hens into the hen house. Am I dealing with something else? We live on the outskirts on Ringwood in what to me is urban but I think to those used to towns is semi rural. We have sandy heath land around here, lots of scotts pines. What else could it have been. Mink maybe?

Thank you for all your advice. We're feeling a little better now. Had to eggs today. It'll be an on going thing with the run for a while now as we keep re-thinking how to do things.
The girls have been following us round the garden as we worked & now are venturing further outside the henhouse into their run. This morning they wouldn't go out there. I'm also feeling better after re-reading my posts. Had a good laugh at my spelling! Can't get used to this tablet thingy I'm on!

DH said concrete would be the best option. But the run is 10ft x 40ft. I think we'll have to gradually fill it in with slabs & concrete between. We've already lifted one of our patios today, but anything is worth it to keep them safe. Lots of free slabs on gumtree at the moment .
I think the next step will be to cover the run with weld mesh just incase.

Just had a sleepless night. Our bedroom is at the back of the bungalow & we have patio doors in there - veh handy as it sems mr fox is responsible for the 1st attack. Our neighbour sent a text at 10pm to say the fox was on his way to our garden. We heard a clunk about an hour later which sounded like he'd tried to dig again & hit the slabs. Just after midnight he cam into the garden which lit up with our security light. We ran out, he ran off. This then hapened all through the night.
I worry that he'll get to thd girls in the summer house. Today I will black out the lower windows. But what to do now I don't know. He needs killing I guess.

Killing foxes doesn't really help. It is reported that when a fox is killed another takes over the territory within 24-48 hours. If you did kill it, it would be a case of hoping the next one is not so persisant. Just keep doing as much as you can to the run and coup to make it difficult.