I'm a little at my wits end, with another fox attack on the homestead. Many of you know I lost my entire rare breed Ixworth flock late last year to a big dog fox. It was TOTALLY my fault - it was dark and though the run door was closed, I was too late in going down to close the coop door. This time, however, the fox scratched and scrabbled and CHEWED HIS WAY THROUGH THE ROOF!
There's good and there's bad. The bad is that Mr. Fox made off with Gertrude - my top silkie, the matriarch, the forebearer of almost all my silkies. She was my husband's first chicken he ever bought too. All that I found was a clump of feathers.
You might be wondering, well what on earth is the good?
Well...the good is that Gertrude's three daughters made a hell of a racket and woke me up at 3.30am. It's that I got out of bed and rushed down the garden in my underwear with two barking, snarling dogs and - I expect - disturbed the fox. And there were no bodies. That was horrible last time; all these white mounds of feathers all over the garden. This time, it was one hen, and she was gone. Finally, it's that though I'm very sad to have lost her, I was no longer using Gertrude for any breeding programs. Mr. Fox could have got my whole generation of hens in a new colour variety I'm developing.
I am, of course, totally paranoid now. So I grabbed the girls and brought them inside overnight. I have no made and installed a new roof, but I'm still paranoid and so I think that though this will protect them during the day, I'll continue to bring them in at night. I do it with the roosters anyway, so it's no hardship bringing in three additional hens.
What a horrible night. I was speaking about it on Twitter and some suggested the problem at the moment relates to the 10 year fox/rabbit prey cycle. I hadn't heard of this before, but each species' population is symbiotic to the other. And, apparently, the rabbits are on their cyclical decline. So foxes have less food and are raiding...and soon will also be on the decline. I know SO many people who've endured attacks this year.
So, as ever, onwards. Homesteading sure is a rollercoaster.
Thanks for reading,
Geoff
