How To Out Fox the Fox

We’ve seen the fox climb up our tree, spring from one tree branch to another, gracefully walk across the tree branch that was hanging over the fence line, jump down to the roof of our metal garden shed, then leaped down on to a chicken wire covered raised planter bed, as if he was using it as a trampoline to soften his landing.

Would you believe me if I told you that he did all this as stealthy as Ethan Hunt in Mission Impossible? Not making the slightest sound, but somehow, some way, the chickens became aware of his presence. We’ve also seen a bobcat and a fox climb the fence as if using it as a ladder.

That’s not happening again on my watch! You’d have to be part squirrel, or part bird to jump from one branch to another. I am making every effort known to me to make it extremely difficult for any predator to enter the chicken range.

As we were purchasing new chicks, we spoke to a couple at the local feed store about our fox problem. They said they never have had a problem because ‘they have a dog’. Now, we thought “what do we do if you don’t have a dog”? Bingo!! By accident we got a rooster along with our hens. Wait, we just didn’t get one, we got two. That problem was solved for us without any effort. Unfortunately the trade-off was that we had two roosters fighting each other over the hens. One had to go. We kept the winner of the rooster fighting and sadly re-homed the looser.

Our electric wire fence is up and running now to prevent predators from climbing over the fence.

It’s time to move on to the trees. We trimmed any tree branches that had grown over the fence. I mean what’s the point of having an electric wire fence when the animals can use a tree branch as a bridge to get across.

We solved the problem of the fox using the larger tree branches as bridges by creating a slippery slide made out of corrugated metal roof panels. You definitely don’t want to see a bright metal panel on your tree (a total eye sore), so we solved the problem by camouflaging it the same color as the tree.

Now for the birds of prey, hawks and owls. In the center of the chicken range, we have a very tall pine tree. We got out the extension ladder, went up about twenty feet, and installed I bolts, that would be the beginning of wires that would run to the fence post around the perimeter of the area. From the air it’s a scary thing, that the birds do not want to fly through.