Have to admire the little bugger.
 

Our 3 chickens were killed by a fox last night and while its a pain and the kids are a little upset I can't help admire the cunning of the bushy tailed one.

They are in a pen with an Igloo type thing that they sleep in, and at about 11.30pm I was outside and they were fine. I went indoors and came out again at 11.40pm to close them up and the fox had got in, bitten the heads off 2 of them and carried the 3rd away.

I was in the kitchen (only about 20ft away from their run but out of sight) and the fox broke into the run, killed the chickens and got away without making a sound (I heard nothing & our dog who usually hears stuff didn't hear anything either) so have to admire it - clever bugger!

Baldrick: I have a plan, sir.
Blackadder: Really, Baldrick. A cunning and subtle one?
Baldrick: Yes, sir.
Blackadder: As cunning as a fox who's just been appointed Professor of Cunning at Oxford University?
Baldrick: Yes, sir.

They certainly are, they can open catches and all sorts. Our rabbit perished over christmas

Unfortunatly, you've found out the hard way how indiscriminate fox's are.

rather than kill for food, they just kill, and then take food.

And what makes it worse, the bleeding heart liberals think poor foxy woxy needs to be treated with kid gloves!!! Its vermin ffs.

Mart

They may indeed be vermin... but they get the Hunster vote for ginger cunningness :D

Time to buy a shotgun and sit on your rocking chair on the porch sipping a bottle of moonshine :)

Simon

good thing our rabiit haas a brick over its door and is on a table, although may fit a mini padlock just in case

;)

I suppose you can't blame the fox too much for following the instincts it was born with. It is the way of nature much in the same way that we eat animals too. It is a shame the fox will kill more than it needs to eat though.

Les

loll i like that, having said that, i think in a fight between a fox and mikey (the rabbit) mikey might win, he is the spawn of the rabbit out of monty python after all lol

Foxes don’t kill the chickens for fun. They will take them all if undisturbed and bury them for harsh times, just as nature intended.

It is a misconception that Foxes just kill for the sake of it. They are actually being clever about this. They find a place where there are prey available. It kills all that it can to stop them escaping, then take as much as it can back to it's lair. If you had not found the chickens you can garuentee that the fox would have been back to collect the remaining dead chickens. So, it's not doing it for fun, it's a sound stratagy to ensure that it make the most of the opportunity.

Of course they kill, then take the food. What do you expect them to do?

Aye, unlike domestic cats ;):D

Quite agree - there were 3 chickens and quite large ones, so the fox couldn't carry all 3, so he killed them all & took what he could carry, to return later for the others.
Indeed I waited up and about an hour later he was back looking for the other 2 that I had cleared away.

Luckily our 3 cats were not out - though I am not sure if Fox's would attack a domestic cat or not?

Well I imagine that any cat, domestic or otherwise, will live by the same rules. I suspect that is the point of what you are inferring.

Yes I understand what was said about the fox killing all three chickens. Perfectly logical when I think on about it.

Les

I used to be anti-hunting, even though I am from Cumbria.

However, now that I am older and a little more pragmatic, I cannot see how one form of unpleasant country behaviour can be banned by the same government that grants vivisection licences.

I am a realist and accept animal research and am a carnivore so therefore must accept fox hunting. So long as the fox is killed quickly.

Steve

You have obviously never worked on a farm then. I have seen 15+ chickens dead, not all from the fox but it can be devastating non the less.

It's not just chickens I once had to check out the pigs and found 2 headless piglets:freak3:

Just look at how bad mankind is then, I am sure you will find Homo Sapiens are a lot worse than foxes ;) .

i watched a good documentary of xmas about the bears in whistler during the summer, it follwed two sets of them one on the tops of the hills and one coming into the village for food. it ened up on scaffolding up ten floors surrounding a new buidling, getting the bulders dinner.

It’s irrelevant if I have worked on or farm or not. Wild carnivores’ animals hunt for food be it a fox or a lion, unlike humans or over fish the seas and dump loads of fish back dead.
Yes, I agree that it can be a pain for farmers, but who are we to say what lives and what dies.

The rules of nature are often pretty hard and it is all designed to create a balance between the living creatures on the planet.

All those who shout about the inhumanity of fox hunting and are prepared to eat fish for supper should ruminate on what happens to the fish having been trawled up. They die a long death of suffocation and very often are cleaned and filleted or skinned while they are still alive! This is a fact but in the circumstances it would not be possible to behave differently of course.

It is also worth considering that the fox hunting bill was created purely out of spite born out of inverted snobbery and revenge. Is it credible that those who have little thought for pensioners,the lives of our armed services, or even the indigenous people of this country would even think twice about the wellbeing of the fox?

Les

anyone guessing whats for tea tonight ?

We had Monkfish tails and prawns-very nice.

Les

Jesus, Les. You must have one big mother of a fish pond in the garden!

24 posts and not a mention of "Hunting Horses" lol ;)

I once Had a cat fish that would try and eat my hand everytime I tried to clean the tank out.. but the funny thing was the cat got it cause I forgot to put the lid back on after feeding the little git.. Its life, Cats eat fish, dogs eat cats and we have been known to eat dogs (sick).
I fancy A bit of chicken tonight actually for my tea,dont post stuff like this when people are trying to lose weight after christmas

Such a pitty, and you were going to let them die of old age aswell :)

Im a meat eater, i believe in farming animals for meat, but find it ironic that farmers do have problems with nature :)

How about allowing the EU to pay for every farm animal killed by wild animal?

:)

Simon

Some have said how the fox kills indiscriminately, and this may be true.

But if things were as nature intended the chickens wouldn't be locked up in the first place. The chickens would fly up into the trees and escape the fox - it would probably kill and eat just one of them. When they're locked up and the fox is in there with them, the fox doesn't know what to do after killing the first one, so it just does what its instincts tell it to do and keeps on killing.

I remeber seeing some nature prog on the telly where a stoat or weasel got into a chicken coup. wiped out the jewson lot! awesome killing machine!

Yes.. and trot off home, pluck them, gut them, and pop them in the freezer for later.. just like us. You'll find Foxes don't like rotten meat very much - they like to eat fresh.

Les, you have it pretty much bang on with the fox hunting ban being pure spite and revenge against "tory snobs" by a bunch of lazy common communist northern monkeys (No offence meant, just applying the same petty, narrow minded, stereotypes that urban Labour back benchers do!)

Butkus - should I make the assumption that you've never seen a chicken fly? Because if you had, you'd still put odds on that the Fox would get the kill! They're far from the most elegant or capable flying creatures on the planet!!

Not far off about the Stoats & weasels.. they're vicious little ****ers.

Now tally ho, I'm going to go give my stable boy a sound beating as he didn't clean out our 40 horses correctly this morning.. and then I'm going to go evict some farm hands that have pregnant wives.... ;)

*Proud paying member of the Countryside Alliance :D*