[Ashandjuls]

We got so upset to find two chickens left after the fox got in and got loads!

We aren't rich and can't buy more, we need advice or someone willing to give us chickens to get back on track, we now made the area fox proof with auto opening/closing timer so fox can't get into the hut at night.

Where do I get chickens? Free would be best, around Durham/sunderland area, don't know how to ask, or where to start.

[ANHBUC]

   Sorry to hear that a fox got your hens.

Welcome to the site.   

You could try your local poultry farms, they usually do a change of stock in the Spring.  Good luck with your new set up and I hope you soon have plenty of new hens.   

[Ashandjuls]

Thank, want to hide and wait for fox to try again ... Bang... Got him! :-)

[Mrs Bee]

I believe that there is an organisation that rehomes battery chickens to good homes. I have never had any but I know someone who has.
Not sure who the contact is but I am sure if you google homing battery chickens the info you need will be out there on the web somewhere.

Sorry the fox got your girls. I watched the programme last night and the carnage that poor guy found with his chickens. Must have been really awful to find yours like that.

My sister had several of hers go that way until she got an electric fence.

Luckily, touch wood, we have not lost any of ours. We had a couple of close calls when they were out free ranging in the middle of the day.We have an electric fence round the run now and don't let them free range. We used to leave their coop door open at night so they could get themselves up in the morning for their breakfast but we stopped that as sister's electric fence got  breached by a fox and lost her last chicken.

We put pricker strips on the top of our 6 foot fences but they don't deter it. It can even squeeze through the hedgehog sized hole we left in the gravel board at the bottom of our fence

Still have to go and chase the fox away in the middle of the day as it comes to see if it can breach our defences.

Perhaps you could start saving towards an electric fence for the future.

Can thoroughly understand your feelings. Feel exactly the same when I see the fox in my garden especially as we have done everything we can to keep the ........ out

[joyfull]

thats the only way Mrs Ball, the fox is doing what is natural for a fox and we have to make sure they cant get close to our chickens - if they free range then electric fencing is the only way.
The rehoming people you mention is the British Hen Welfare Trust  .

[Mrs Bee]

While I fully realise that the fox is doing what is natural, I do think that the local councils should do more about the growing number of urban foxes in towns.


Yes, it is the fault of humankind because of the easy food pickings around fast food restaurants and we do have people who think it is 'nice to see a fox in their garden and feed them'. A local lady feeds them to try and keep them away from her rabbits.
 Didn't work!

The fox in its way is a danger to human  health with the toxacara worm and mange even as the rat is. I wouldn't want a grandchild of mine ( not that I have any) playing in my garden after the foxes had defecated as it all too often does.
If we had a wild dog in the garden we could have it removed by the council. It would be good to have the same  option with the foxes. 

However until that time we have to fort Knox the hens.

BUt when your chickens have been torn up it is difficult not to want retribution.

[tosca100]

Programmes like the one last night unfortunately depict urban foxes as cute (and mangey) and doesn't help when two vets are oooing and aaaahing over them. So a cull would be well opposed...apart from those people who have lost garden chooks or found them curled up on baby's bed!

[Mrs Bee]

Strewth, Tosca is that what happened to you? Was the baby in the bed?

No, it doesn't help when TV progs show foxes as cute.
Roald Dahl has a lot to answer for.

Now I may be wrong, and I often am, ,but I thought that once a fox was trapped you were not allowed to re-release it and yet the guy on the programm did.

There is a fox rescue charity in the London area and I have seen a prog where these 2 old guys rescued, treated and re-released the fox in the town.

I was at the Epping Forest Festival a while ago and the same guys were there with their stall and asked if I would be interested in joining and donating. 

I didn't say anything, no honestly, no bad language either, I didn't deck him. i was very good and besides OH had my arm very firmly and was steering me towards the venison burger stall as quickly as he could.

A young friend of mine found a fox in her house, in the bathroom. Got in through the catflap. She too thought it cute and sent the pic to the local paper, which of course perpetuates the myth of cute. Wouldn't have felt that way if the fox had savaged the cat.

Ooo, I have gone cold just thinking of the fox on the baby's bed.

[Beano]

There was a woman on that programme last night that had been encouraging a fox into her house but when it came in "uninvited" and bit her foot while she was asleep she wanted the council to do something about it.  Well lady (the one on the telly), a fox is a wild animal, NOT A PET!! We humans always do that. We expect nature to behave as we want and when it turns round and bites us on the *** we complain.
One minute we think the fox is cute and the next we hate it for behaving like a wild animal.

[splash101]

i know this is slightly going away from the original question but there was a family of foxes living under the shed at my local primary school. Why on earth they never did anything about it is beyond me, especially as it used to come out during daytime and of course the children used to chase after it  . The caretaker was forever clearing up its disgusting mess (otherwise the children step in it and drag it through the school) and also had to clear up the odd dead body that the fox had brought.

It is devastating waking up to find you have been visited by the fox. I hope you get some replacements soon. Our local RSPCA sometimes rehome exbats. I'm not sure if there is a charge involved but perhaps contact your local centre, they may be able to point you in the direction of something local to you.

[Mrs Bee]

There was a woman on that programme last night that had been encouraging a fox into her house but when it came in "uninvited" and bit her foot while she was asleep she wanted the council to do something about it.  Well lady (the one on the telly), a fox is a wild animal, NOT A PET!! We humans always do that. We expect nature to behave as we want and when it turns round and bites us on the *** we complain.
One minute we think the fox is cute and the next we hate it for behaving like a wild animal.

I must rewatch my recording of the program. I didn't get the impression that she had been encouraging it in to the house.

I got the impression that she  left the window open and it came in. I probably missed somat.

However I have never thought of a fox as cute. It is a wild animal and as such it should be, in my opinion, in the wild not surburbia.

Splash 101. We had the same thing at school where I was teaching. Nightmare with all the kids and we couldn't get anything done by the council.

[Thrift]

We had free hens from a local 'free range'  farm who were clearing out stock for their annual replacement. They have since grown all their feathers and most days we get 100% egg production.

I'm afraid I switched off last night's programme after half an hour. I thought it was going to be an unbiased study of urban foxes instead of a soppy, sentimentalised portrait of what are vermin. Utterly ridiculous to treat that mangey fox and then release it into an urban area again. It, along with a lot, more should be dispatched! Imagine all the pets cotracting mange from those foxes.

[Mrs Bee]

We had free hens from a local 'free range'  farm who were clearing out stock for their annual replacement. They have since grown all their feathers and most days we get 100% egg production.

I'm afraid I switched off last night's programme after half an hour. I thought it was going to be an unbiased study of urban foxes instead of a soppy, sentimentalised portrait of what are vermin. Utterly ridiculous to treat that mangey fox and then release it into an urban area again. It, along with a lot, more should be dispatched! Imagine all the pets cotracting mange from those foxes.

My thoughts exactly. Although I did watch the prog to the end in case they had a few more anti fox people on to balance it out.

Spent  quite a lot of the prog shouting at the people on it.
Write up in the Radio times portrayed the prog as being a balance debate about the culling of foxes and that is why I recorded it.

[Beano]

Hope you manage to replace your chickens. Good luck.

[grinling]

Do you make sure that the chooks are all inside at night? You need to secure your outer run area against foxes digging in as well as climbing over the fence as they are active during the day as well. Weld mesh is reccomended at least 2 spade depth all round the base of the run. I cover my exposed roof area with bean netting, but no foxes are seen/heard/smelt where I live.