Double Down Chicken Disaster Strikes UK Homesteading Community

Today I read with sadness and dismay that my fellow UK homesteader @brimwoodfarm has suffered a fox raid on his chickens.

This was doubly sad as the fox killed all four of his rare breed Ixworth chickens - three hens and a rooster.

Ixworth are a heritage dual purpose breed that are good both for eggs and meat. I have been keen to get some to replenish my homestead flock for some time.

Geoff @brimwoodfarm had just recently offered to supply me with some Ixworth hatching eggs in the spring. That now must wait.

And here comes the real stinger in the bushy tail ... yesterday I lost two of my hens to a fox.

The predator of choice for my chickens has traditionally always been the buzzard. As my chicken pens are so large it has not been feasible to protect against aerial attack.

Although when we free-ranged the runner ducks in the field down to the lake we lost a few to the foxes they have never until now taken a chicken.

This was because both our chicken pens are surrounded by 6 foot fencing with 2 foot wire mesh skirting to prevent digging. Impenetrable to the fox and his crew.

Until now. When the snow came.

Along one side of the orchard pen are a row of conifer trees. These Leyland Cypress trees are very thick and dense and even in winter several of the hens prefer to fly up into them to sleep rather than going into the chicken coops.

That has always been fine. Each morning the hens come out of the trees, hop onto the fence and then down into the pen.

Then the heavy snow came and weighed down the dense conifer branches until they toppled over away from the pen.

Two of the hens roosting in the trees came down with the falling branches and then couldn't get back up into the pen.

This must have happened early morning - just about breakfast time for the patrolling fox.

My daughter called me to the conservatory to see the fox trotting away with one of the hens. I dashed outside and the fox dropped the hen. Although I could find no blood or bites she still warm but totally dead. She must have gone with a single neck break I guess.

I didn't know at that point what had happened with the fallen trees so I rushed to the orchard pen to check if the rest of the chickens were okay and if the fence had been breached.

A full perimeter search confirmed that the fence was still all intact but one more hen was missing.

Then I spotted the two new puppies getting very excited. They had found the kill spot for the missing hen. She must have put up a fight with the fox as there was a pile of white feathers on the red stained snow. But nothing else. Breakfast had already been served.

Luckily, if I can comparatively use that word against @brimwoodfarm 's loss, both my fallen hens were 4+ years old and past their laying best.

Hence my plan to bring in fresh stock with the Ixworth's.

So despite my building mighty defences of wood and steel, mother nature and a quick brown fox won the day.

That is life. That is death.

That was Pennsif's Progress - Day 826.

You might also be interested in some of my other posts :

[ all images by @pennsif ]

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