Foxes and Chickens

Day before yesterday my husband was outside and he came rushing in saying "It sounds like something's getting slaughtered out there!" He got the Ruger .22 and went out the back door, where we saw a fox out by the chicken house. It was a beautiful fox, ginger colored, and it was FAST. My husband shot a few rounds towards it but didn't hit it. It's fox season right now so a direct hit would have been nice, but he at least scared it off. We need to zero that scope in for 100 yards; it's zeroed wrong for what we use it for the most (scaring varmints from the chicken house area).


We saw a couple of big piles of feathers but the chickens were under cover and not coming out. I counted all of them when I locked up at night, but they were huddled together so I couldn't tell if anyone was hurt or not. Yesterday morning, I didn't let them out of their house but instead let them into the attached run. Everyone ran out except this poor tailless hen.


She has a big naked spot on her butt, so I went inside and got some Blue Kote and sprayed her wound with that. Blue Kote is great on chickens because it's an antiseptic spray that fights germs and fungi; it also turns the naked skin dark blue so the other chickens aren't nearly as likely to peck at the wound. I got mine at my local feed store; I've never used the site I linked to but they had the best online price when I was writing this post.

The chickens will be on lockdown for the next several days. I am glad they are locked up because I heard and saw a huge hawk this morning as I let the chickens out into their run and gave them food and fresh water. We've lost two chickens to hawks this month. Grrrr.

We keep our dogs inside a "radio fence" and we're thinking of getting another transmitter to expand their territory so that it includes the chicken house.