5 Comments

  1. I sympathise, We live in Bellambi and lost our four chooks last Tuesday night. They were scattered headless around the place and we buried them in the rain. The next day I found a Fox scat (turd, poo, crap) on the back deck. Obviously He or She was miffed that we had disposed of their bounty. A chookwise friend of mine mentioned that they always come back the next night. Maybe this can be helpful information for chicken fanciers trying to ambush the beasties. Meanwhile, thanks for the info on security. I will be taking stock.

  2. David

    Sorry to hear about the fox destruction.
    Possibly look into foxlights (www.foxlights.com). An Aust invention desgined to keep foxes out of sheep padocks.

    Have not used them, so cannot vouch for it in any way.

    Luck with finding a solution.

    • @David: Thanks. I’d seen the foxlight on New Inventors, but it was much more expensive last time I looked at it. It’s still a bit pricey for me, though – I’d rather make the pens foxproof and not have to muck around with batteries etc on a device that may not prevent all attacks anyway. We’ll be getting a dog, too, which will help enormously.

  3. We keep a pair of geese with our chooks, as they ward off foxes, snakes and warn of raptors. Over the past 3 years we have lost 1 chook to a kite, and we free range 140 girls in our flock. And yes Mareema dogs work well too.

    • @NearRiverProduce.com: Thanks for the tip! I have heard that geese are good for that. Two of our muscovy drakes fought off a fox once (although one of them got injured), so I can see that an even larger (and louder!) bird should do well. We’re planning to get geese, too. There’s a poultry auction coming up soon, so hopefully I can get some there. We also just got a kelpie puppy, so we’ll have a multi-pronged defence against predators.

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