If you have chickens on your property, you’ll want to do your best to protect them from foxes!
You’ll want to lock up your chickens every night, use reliable fencing, get a dog, and perform routine checkups on your chicken coop.
When you take all of these steps, your chickens will be safe from foxes!
What to Expect? Foxes are very clever animals and will take advantage of problems in coop fencing without fail. Overall, staying vigilant will help keep your chickens safe!
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How Do I Protect My Chickens From Foxes?
Foxes tend to hunt during the night and early hours of the morning.
If you want to make sure your chickens are safe, you’ll need to lock them up every night and check on them in the morning.
Some farmers even use automatic locks, which close up their coops at set times.
However, you still might want to check on your chickens! Overall, staying aware of foxes and watching out for them will keep your birds safe.
If you’re ready to protect your chickens from foxes, you’ll want to follow these steps.
Lock Up Your Chickens Every Night
First, always lock your chickens in their coop every night! If the coop remains open, foxes can easily get inside and cause damage.
Foxes are most active after your chickens head into the coop.
Since foxes hunt during the night, you want to make sure that all of your chickens make it back to the coop when the sun goes down.
Most chickens will do this independently, but you’ll always want to check for stragglers before locking the coop.
You’ll need to turn this into a habit to protect your chickens!
If you forget to lock up some nights, start by setting a reminder on your phone. You can also get an automatic lock.
Some versions lock when they detect the sun has gone down, or you can set a timer on them.
Overall: The best way to protect your animals is to ensure they’re safe and secure in their home each night! A strong lock can help keep out wild foxes.
Use Reliable Fencing
Next, you might want to upgrade to a more robust fencing system.
Secure fencing will keep out predators.
Foxes are very intelligent creatures and can easily find weak points to dig under the fence, meaning you’ll want to make sure the fence goes underground!
A high fence with a slope at the top also helps prevent foxes from climbing over it.
If you notice any rusting areas on the fence, make sure that you replace them as soon as you can.
A determined fox could find a way inside!
Get a Dog
Having a dog can also help keep away foxes!
Foxes are afraid of dogs and will avoid them.
Plus, they have a strong sense of smell, so they’ll know that you have a dog living on your property.
Foxes dislike medium to large breeds of dogs but might not care about small ones. Your pet might also alert you to the presence of a fox!
Many chicken owners train their dogs to be friendly around chickens, then let them guard the birds as they wander around outside.
If you can’t have a dog, you might want to consider getting guinea fowl instead. These birds scare away many predators, including foxes.
Perform Routine Checkups on Your Chicken Coop
You’ll also want to give your chicken coop and surrounding fencing a checkup every month!
However, the more often you can, the better.
You’ll want to check for weak points, including holes or if the coop door doesn’t shut tightly. Any small entrances to the coop would be easy for a fox to breach.
Then, once you find issues, make sure to repair them immediately!
You might need to set up a temporary fix until you can complete the maintenance. Although, you won’t want to leave the coop with any insecurities for very long.
Overall, make sure that you perform routine checkups on your chicken coop!
Always Good Idea – If you have the time to inspect it more often than once a month, make sure to do so. You never know when some kind of damage could appear in your defenses!
What Are Signs of a Fox Attack?
Do you suspect that you have foxes on your property?
You’ll want to watch for signs of a fox attack on your flock.
While foxes look like dogs, they hunt like cats.
They stalk their prey, then make a quick capture. You may not even find any signs of blood in or around the coop!
That means you might only know something happened because one of your birds is missing.
Most foxes will only take one or two chickens at a time if they hunt them while they’re outside.
If the fox gains access to a coop, it might take all of them!
These are the most common signs that a fox attacked your flock:
- You suspect the attack occurred during the early morning or nighttime
- Missing bird with little evidence, possible feathers
- Very little or no blood
- Only one or two missing birds
- Chicken doesn’t return after free-ranging
What’s the Best Way To Protect Chickens?
The most efficient way to protect your chickens from foxes is to install a large fence around their enclosure.
You want to make it at least one foot deep in the ground, but you can go deeper if the fence is tall enough.
Foxes are known to dig under fencing to try to make it through. You can make it much harder for the foxes to get inside by burying the fence!
Some people use electrical fences; however, this option isn’t the best.
Keep In Mind – Foxes usually jump fences or dig under them, so they never make contact with it. Plus, foxes are smart enough to learn when the fence is on and off!
If a fox succeeds in hunting one of your chickens, you can trust that it will return. You’ll want to prevent them from getting a taste of chicken in the first place if you can.
Final Thoughts
Foxes are very clever animals and will take advantage of problems in coop fencing without fail.
You’ll want to lock up your chickens every night, use reliable fencing, get a dog, and perform routine checkups on your chicken coop.
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