Fox Amongst Our Chickens

Our hens tend to lay early in the morning. As soon as we are up, we put the kettle on, let the dogs out, put the garden shoes that are kept by the back-door on, and pop up to let the hens out so they can visit the nest box which is halfway up the garden.

Last Thursday morning, the blue hen shot between my legs on her way to the nest box, with the other hens waiting until I got out of the way. I came back in, made Terry’s tea and my coffee, let the dogs in and went back up to bed. Still dark you see.

Ten minutes later, you guessed it, chickens playing merry hell up the garden. I shoot out of bed, Terry, who is pretty much deaf in the ear she doesn’t lie on, starts panicking and asking what’s wrong. Meanwhile I’m out the back door and up the garden in bare feet, shouting at the fox to ‘drop that bloody hen you b@5a4d’Â because I know they understand that sort of language. Sure enough he does drop the red hen he was carrying. I spend about five minutes struggling back to the house because I stand on every stone that exists in the garden.

When the light came, it revealed two miserable hens, both red. The blue and white hens were fine – could it be that the fox has a preference for pheasant coloured birds? You train hawks on dummies similar to the intended quarry. Clumps of feathers and a tail were scattered around the garden.

Three days later things are more or less back to normal, with the exception the hens are laying in the roosting box and we are making plans to move the nesting box into the run rather than the free range approach. And we are designing a DIY fox trap – suggestions on a postcard please!

And no, the bloody dogs didn’t even bark…