It does none of us any harm. probably only good to see things from anothers perspective, and yes there is then room for all and we can learn nad hopefully good will come of it.
Head above the trench here. I agree with Jack Russel about air rifles being cruel to foxes..............Just moved last year to rural location and inherited chickens and geese. Local pub conversation with a farmhand / gamekeeper informed me that an air rifle will only wound a fox and a fox is then likely to bleed to death.......Not a humane solution. Fox is killing to survive. and we are killing it to ensure a status quo that gives us pleasure, Totally different angles of perception.
And Same fellow informs me that a fox will kill more than can be eaten because the noise of the others squawking when he /she makes a kill and this is threatening to bring attention .....
I have an air rifle, I use it for rats and it will dispatch a rat easily and thats a rifle at the legal limit of 12 foot pounds. above that you need a firearms licence. and even then the kinetic energy of a 22 pellet will not be enough to kill a fox. more likely pass straight through it and it will then bleed to death and die slowly.... The fox does not deserve punishing just for being a fox. We have to deter the fox from considering our flock as an opportunity..
Babe mentions air rifles that are more powerful and this is probably a pressurised canister or divers tank fed type some of which are with rapid multishot and these are very powerful and quite capable of killing even a human being but as said above the penetration is good but there is insufficient kinetic energy to give an outright kill in all but the most exceptional circumstances.. A higher velocity bullet delivers a hydrostatic shock and that is what kills, not the puncture wound....... a shot through the eye or ear a or temporal lobe might do it, or might not
Saying that if I saw a fox in amongst my birds and the rifle was handy I would shoot it, even though it would essentially be a cruel thing to do. It might be enough to deter it and get rid of it for the time being..But thats all, and more an emotional reaction than a practical one..
I intend to built mesh fencing to about 7 feet high all around where my birds run, and ensure that the bottom is firmly fixed and not easy to dig under..Until that is done I am running with lady Luck. and I would hate to lose any of the birds I have. Its hard to believe what characters they are and what individuals they prove to be and how attached you get to them and its perfectly understandable that people get in a blind rage when a fox has done its natures work and fed itself and its family and is then doomed to die for its hunger..... If a fox could intellectualise it would probably have a very good argument as to why its way of eating chickens is far less cruel overall than the way humankind treats and thinks of chickens... A fox does not dictate a life of misery for its foodstuff from birth, as a great majority of poultry endure, merely brief trauma at the moment of the kill.
Apart from the fencing I am going to get a dog, one that will live outside and be a companion and protector to the birds..
I doubt there is ever a foolproof way of keeping poultry totally free from the predations of a fox but the best we can do is to deter them from taking our own stock, and inevitably that means they will take from someone who has not yet got round to establishing that same level of deterrence...
Nature red in tooth and claw......Bring joy or sorrow depending which end of it you happen to be on at any particular time.....
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February 22, 2008, 09:14