[Roughlee Handled]

I the coop is made well an ark type coop with the ramps that raise closing all access to the coop at night are good.

With regards to the small

....burrow under it to allow access to something small, thank goodness.
.......

That will be rodents of some sort mice or rats.  Do you take the chicken feed away at night, if you do not then you must. That is what the mice/rats are after.

[joyfull]

Underneath my arks and small hen houses we have stapled 1"square galvanised welded wire mesh. Grass still comes through but not rats, mice, stoats etc. My shed is raised on breeze blocks and then has a ledge of metal to prevent rats getting in (when placed just on it's 8" wheels the rats chewed a small hole in the pop hole and along the floor/side joints - all done over 2 nights).

[Rubellite]

I have also tacked mesh beneath the floor in the sleeping compartment of my ark

[Jane-M]

OMIGOD! I feel quite ill with fright now. Any foxes near us must be shy creatures for no-one in my lane has ever seen one near the houses, but obviously they are lurking out there out of sight. We have three bothersome pullets just now who refuse to go indoors at dusk, they go to roost in our big beech hedge and are totally unbudgeable. I hope the colder evenings will drive them indoors.

[Roughlee Handled]

Jane-M have you checked out your coop for redmite?  It is normal for them not want to got in the coop if there is red mite there.  I would suggest that you pick them off the hedge and put them on the perching bar in the coop (if mite free) and close the pop hole door. The will be an easy target in the hedge. 

What type of coop do you have?

[joolie]

Hi.
I could really do with some advice off experienced chicken keepers please.
 I worry so much about a bloomin fox getting my girls that i've had to buy a warmer quilty cos i sleep with the window wide open listening out for any sign of trouble! I have my run stood on concrete and the girls are in their pop hole at night.  Will a fox be able to get to them if they are tucked in and there is no way of digging underneath?
I'm looking into getting a bigger run and some electric poulty netting but might there be no need for this?
My choccy lab guards the girls all day but comes in when they go to bed about 7pm. He's getting an id crisis as he eats their treats and even digs in the muck with them.
Cheers, Joolie x

[Roughlee Handled]

.............Will a fox be able to get to them if they are tucked in and there is no way of digging underneath?
............

If your coop is well made then your chickens should be safe at night.  Ask yourself could your Lab get in to the coop if really wanted to?

.............
I'm looking into getting a bigger run and some electric poulty netting but might there be no need for this?............

You chickens would always love a bigger run.

[joolie]

Thanks Roughlee Handled,
Never thought of it like that - my lab would not be able to get in.  Might sleep a bit better at night now - cheers 

[Jane-M]

Jane-M have you checked out your coop for redmite?  It is normal for them not want to got in the coop if there is red mite there.  I would suggest that you pick them off the hedge and put them on the perching bar in the coop (if mite free) and close the pop hole door. The will be an easy target in the hedge.  

What type of coop do you have?

Thanks for this Rough. The coop is clean as far as I can tell and the other 9 hens have no issues with sleeping in there. It is impossible to extricate the little blighters from the hedge as they are not on it but IN it. It is an old dense hedge 10 feet high and over 2 feet deep of tightly criss-crossing little branches and still in full leaf so you can't actually see them either, even if you stick your head into it (painfully scratchy). Oh and I forgot to say it is 60 feet long.

If I thought perhaps they just didn't like going in with the established flock, that would be fair does. But they had the little quarantine coop when they first came, and as soon as they were allowed out they took to roosting in the hedge. Perhaps that is what they were used to on the farm - I didn't think to ask. They fly like no-body's business as well.

I would be much much happier locking them in the hen house if I could get to them before they roost, but they roost before anyone else has gone to bed, and if I open the pop hole to let the others get to bed they run out again and up into the hedge... sigh. I am beginning to think that if they are so bone headed they deserve to be fox fodder  

[Roughlee Handled]

Jane-M I am at a loss on what to say.  I would suggest you start a new thread in the Hen house and see if anyone else has any ideas. 

What breed are they?

[Jane-M]

Sort of Bovans Goldline type. Lovely birds but with minds of their own 

[joyfull]

Jane-M, I too have a hen (a silkie cross bantam) that will not sleep in our shed, instesd she has taken to sleeping in one of our apple trees (too high up for me to reach her - if I try she just climbs higher). She has been doing this for weeks now in fact ever since the day I sent her brother and sister down to live in Bedfordshire. Hopefully she will move back in to the shed when the tree loses it's leaves.

[Alison_T]

I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned this, but I was told that if a male urinates around the coop area, this deters foxes...to this end, I got my husband to pee in a bucket for a day and tipped the urine around the garden! I've certainly not had any foxes around here since doing so!

[John]

My sister lives in the country, has 2 dogs and in came Mr Fox and killed 3 hens in the middle of the day when she, her husband and dogs were in the large garden that adjoins the paddock. He took seconds before running off with one leaving one dead and one mortally wounded.

Free range is not safe. Country or town they present a danger to unprotected hens. Nobody takes out insurance expecting to crash their car.. but we take it out.

Foxes are like most thieves, opportunist. Yes raffles the burglar can get into your house however you secure it but the actual threat is some young passing scally who spots the open window.

[sunshineband]

Anyone who has seen the carnage a fox on the rampage can leave behind after a killing spree with free range hens would never forget it.

IMHO foxes not only hunt for food but also just have a blood lust 

Double care, and as John says, being prepared for scallies, is the best way to keep those chooks (and ducks and turkeys  ) safe.