# Keeping out foxes



## Malymaz (Oct 11, 2010)

Just a quick one I hope it's the right section
We have alot of foxes in the garden at our new house and before we move the chickens I have double wired there run and internal area with 19g wire on the inside and 1/4x1/4 inch 16g mesh all around even the floor on the outside ( buried 6 Inches under ground level) will this be enough to keep the foxes out when the chickens are not locked in their shed?
Many thanks


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## giant snail (Oct 25, 2009)

shoot em:whistling2: we had 43 shot last year in a period of 11 days between june - aug. having some people agian this year to wait for them start of aug. i know not many people wil agree with this but there is alot of people in my area had so much trouble with them there must be hundreds of them we had 8 fox babies just out of one hole up the stables all where skanky looking so hoping they are not going to pass anything more onto our horses like a few years back.
and there is about 30 acres where the garden center grow tree's and store stuff nd mounds of manure/ compost they bull dosed one mound and about 30 foxes run out. all full grown adults that was in febuary. that was just 1 of about 8 mounds up there!:whip:

they are a pain shey S*** everywhere ontop of my hutches ontop of things i use most days i end up treading in it:devil:, they stink carry lice and ticks everywhere attract the flies. i spend just as much time cleaning up after them as well as my animals

they rip all my muck bags open so i have had to make a special box to put them all untill they are collected.


they have got lots of my rabbits and 1 guinea pig!

i think i have them sused now ( run wise)

make sure thre is wood firmly secure either side of wire as they dig at it or jump on it with thier front feet and it comes out/ apart. all my runs even for the chickens have wire on the floor 2 inch holes as i just dont trust them. they dug a hole almost 3 ft deep to try and get inside where i keep the hutches and smaller animals. they never got in cause thier was boaring on the floor which they had a good chew at.

my friend who has various poultry they chewed though plastic coated wire mesh and killed 20 of his chickens and only took 2.

they recently got 3 adult geese who has been free range ( apart from night time) for 10 years! and in 6 months they got every single one of them. something really needs to be done around here.:bash:


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## Malymaz (Oct 11, 2010)

giant snail said:


> shoot em:whistling2: we had 43 shot last year in a period of 11 days between june - aug. having some people agian this year to wait for them start of aug. i know not many people wil agree with this but there is alot of people in my area had so much trouble with them there must be hundreds of them we had 8 fox babies just out of one hole up the stables all where skanky looking so hoping they are not going to pass anything more onto our horses like a few years back.
> and there is about 30 acres where the garden center grow tree's and store stuff nd mounds of manure/ compost they bull dosed one mound and about 30 foxes run out. all full grown adults that was in febuary. that was just 1 of about 8 mounds up there!:whip:
> 
> they are a pain shey S*** everywhere ontop of my hutches ontop of things i use most days i end up treading in it:devil:, they stink carry lice and ticks everywhere attract the flies. i spend just as much time cleaning up after them as well as my animals
> ...


Wow you do have a problem with them! 
I think we had 6 in the garden lastnight or that's how many pairs of eyes I could see when shone a torch! They are not little manky ones either The person who lived here before us was bed ridden for over 10 years and the garden was totally over grown we have cut it all back and filled in the holes but still get them digging and screaming every night :bash:


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## FeralWild (May 9, 2011)

If there is a weak point in your chicken fence, a fox will find it and wipe out your chickens in a night. If not within a minute. They kill them not just because they are there, but screaming chickens attract attention and foxes know this so they kill them all to silence them. Strictly speaking, if you left them to it once all the birds were dead, the foxes would come back and forth and take all the birds away and bury them somewhere near by for leaner times. The only reason people assume they kill all the birds for no reason other to take one or two, is because they usually get disturbed and back out before the job is finished. If they have the oportunity to take them all they will.

However killing them only solves the problem short term, as a foxes territory constantly overlaps other territories and if one dog fox is shot, then another will scent the fact as the territory boundaries are scented and as the scent weakens with age, the new fox moves in. (did that make any sense?)

You can however submentally move them out with scent which can frighten them away or intimidate them into believing a larger, more dangerous animal lives in the vacinity, causing them to back away a safer distance. This will move them out of the garden area and further away, making them think it is dangerous to risk entering the garden.

To do this you need a masking scent and the best way of doing this is using Male Human testosterone. Its not as crazy as it sounds, human scent can have a great effect on the male fox and as the male backs out, the vixen and cubs follow. Testosterone is present in human hair, and if you ask a local barber they will give you a bag of hair (must be from a man). Put big handfuls of hair into tights and tie them in bunches around the bottom of the fence line about a foot above the ground. The balls of hair will weaken after a few weeks but usually that is enough time to put the message across to the foxes. If it doesn't you can just replace them with new hair.

A slightly more extreme alternative is to have a man pee on the ground around the fence. The scent of the urine is very over powering to the foxes delicate sense of smell and they fear the high testosterone levels in the pee. If you find this idea a little over the top you could borrow an unneutered male dog and walk him round the fence, allowing him to cock his leg and pee on the fence posts. Usually the scent of a much larger male dog is enough to scare them away.


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## Malymaz (Oct 11, 2010)

FeralWild said:


> If there is a weak point in your chicken fence, a fox will find it and wipe out your chickens in a night. If not within a minute. They kill them not just because they are there, but screaming chickens attract attention and foxes know this so they kill them all to silence them. Strictly speaking, if you left them to it once all the birds were dead, the foxes would come back and forth and take all the birds away and bury them somewhere near by for leaner times. The only reason people assume they kill all the birds for no reason other to take one or two, is because they usually get disturbed and back out before the job is finished. If they have the oportunity to take them all they will.
> 
> However killing them only solves the problem short term, as a foxes territory constantly overlaps other territories and if one dog fox is shot, then another will scent the fact as the territory boundaries are scented and as the scent weakens with age, the new fox moves in. (did that make any sense?)
> 
> ...


Brilliant reply thank you
We are trying the human hair thing and thinking about the dog scent even tho we have one he has an implant and is totally dwarfed by the foxes lol they are much bigger than alot of the foxes you see!
Just one more thing is it true that foxes won't hunt in their own back garden so to speak? I have noticed they keep to the far end of the garden even during the day and don't tend to venture closer where the chickens are!
But chase off any other animals that come into the garden!


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## Zoo-Man (Apr 12, 2008)

giant snail said:


> shoot em:whistling2: we had 43 shot last year in a period of 11 days between june - aug. having some people agian this year to wait for them start of aug. i know not many people wil agree with this but there is alot of people in my area had so much trouble with them there must be hundreds of them we had 8 fox babies just out of one hole up the stables all where skanky looking so hoping they are not going to pass anything more onto our horses like a few years back.
> and there is about 30 acres where the garden center grow tree's and store stuff nd mounds of manure/ compost they bull dosed one mound and about 30 foxes run out. all full grown adults that was in febuary. that was just 1 of about 8 mounds up there!:whip:
> 
> they are a pain shey S*** everywhere ontop of my hutches ontop of things i use most days i end up treading in it:devil:, they stink carry lice and ticks everywhere attract the flies. i spend just as much time cleaning up after them as well as my animals
> ...


Foxes are opportunistic animals, & very intelligent, so plastic mesh used to house chickens is a doddle for them to get through, as is any small animal housing that is not adequate enough to prevent a fox digging under or jumping over. Not the fault of foxes at all. Rubbish bags left out in the open are also an open invitation to foxes, so again, not their fault at all. A fox holocaust isn't the answer, as the area the shot foxes inhabited will just be taken over by new foxes who find the territory.


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## FeralWild (May 9, 2011)

You will need to find a family friend who has a large male dog, like a GSD or a rotti, but anything large and male that hasn't been castrated will do. Walk them round the chicken fence, and if you want to, the fence line of the garden, to make them move out altogether. There is no evidence that a fox would not attack animals or hunt within their own garden as a foxes territory is designed specifically to feed it and its family. They may not attack your chickens directly, but they will have caches around your garden and other adjoining gardens. These are bits of food, buried either in the soil or under rocks and garden rubbish in easily reached points for the fox to get to when it is hungry.

You have got to make sure your chickens are contained at all times through the day, foxes are opportunistic and will hunt at any time of the day if an opportunity presents itself. I have heard of a fox walking into a farm yard at 2 in the afternoon on a summers day, with a collie dog asleep at the front porch and the farm staff working about the yard. The fox killed 45 chickens and 15 muscovy ducks and then on being disturbed, ran off with just one chicken.

Without control, foxes can and will live happily alongside humans. I worked in Hatfield for 6 months in 2004 handrearing baby macaw parrots, and whilst there I lived on a country estate with a converted barn as my lodgings. I had a pair of foxes living close by as I would come out of the front door on a night for a smoke, and catch glimpses of them running into the hedge or across the field next door. One evening at about 3am when I was coming up the path to the house from the pub, I saw the vixen holding a pheasant in its mouth, run across the path in front of me and into a gap under the front steps to my front door. Moments later the dog came out with four cubs and started gambolling on the grass. They were living right underneath my livingroom in a gap under the foundations. I got a little over attached to them and eventually the dog and vixen would walk through my front door of their own free will and take cooked chicken out of my hands and the vixen even let me stroke her. When I moved back to manchester I was a bit gutted at leaving them behind but these were wild country foxes, not town foxes and although they took to me for food, they would not take to my replacement and moved out to a new den in the copse of trees 200 yards away from the house when he moved in.


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## Malymaz (Oct 11, 2010)

FeralWild said:


> You will need to find a family friend who has a large male dog, like a GSD or a rotti, but anything large and male that hasn't been castrated will do. Walk them round the chicken fence, and if you want to, the fence line of the garden, to make them move out altogether. There is no evidence that a fox would not attack animals or hunt within their own garden as a foxes territory is designed specifically to feed it and its family. They may not attack your chickens directly, but they will have caches around your garden and other adjoining gardens. These are bits of food, buried either in the soil or under rocks and garden rubbish in easily reached points for the fox to get to when it is hungry.
> 
> You have got to make sure your chickens are contained at all times through the day, foxes are opportunistic and will hunt at any time of the day if an opportunity presents itself. I have heard of a fox walking into a farm yard at 2 in the afternoon on a summers day, with a collie dog asleep at the front porch and the farm staff working about the yard. The fox killed 45 chickens and 15 muscovy ducks and then on being disturbed, ran off with just one chicken.
> 
> Without control, foxes can and will live happily alongside humans. I worked in Hatfield for 6 months in 2004 handrearing baby macaw parrots, and whilst there I lived on a country estate with a converted barn as my lodgings. I had a pair of foxes living close by as I would come out of the front door on a night for a smoke, and catch glimpses of them running into the hedge or across the field next door. One evening at about 3am when I was coming up the path to the house from the pub, I saw the vixen holding a pheasant in its mouth, run across the path in front of me and into a gap under the front steps to my front door. Moments later the dog came out with four cubs and started gambolling on the grass. They were living right underneath my livingroom in a gap under the foundations. I got a little over attached to them and eventually the dog and vixen would walk through my front door of their own free will and take cooked chicken out of my hands and the vixen even let me stroke her. When I moved back to manchester I was a bit gutted at leaving them behind but these were wild country foxes, not town foxes and although they took to me for food, they would not take to my replacement and moved out to a new den in the copse of trees 200 yards away from the house when he moved in.


That must have been a great experience with them coming into your house and feeding mum and babies were all sunbathing at the bottom of the garden they are getting big now I'm still not sure about the big dog thing I know of a pair of foxes that were quite happy to live and breed under a shed even tho there were 4 GSDs living in the house! I've re~wired the whole of the out side of their run with 16g wire on the outside 14g under ground and softer 19g on the inside incase they get spooked also put padlocks on every door and joint on their house! it's like fort Knox lol I hope this works


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## FeralWild (May 9, 2011)

Towards the end of september you will have the dispatch period when the cubs all get chased away by the dog fox, to find territories of their own. During that time, activity in the garden will be limited but make sure you don't get over confident as the foxes will still be about and watching.


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## Malymaz (Oct 11, 2010)

FeralWild said:


> Towards the end of september you will have the dispatch period when the cubs all get chased away by the dog fox, to find territories of their own. During that time, activity in the garden will be limited but make sure you don't get over confident as the foxes will still be about and watching.


Will keep my eyes open for that ive already noticed attempts at digging new holes around the house! We already only let our rat out in the garden supervised I think the chickens are destined for a life in their shed and run!


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