Fox problems!!

[hilltopflock]

I was sitting in front of the living room window on the computer at 2pm and all of a sudden the chickens free ranging went nuts and when I looked outside I saw a red fox running into the woods with one of my pullets and then I took a head count of all my poultry and realized I'm missing 2 drakes and one hen mallards and a full grown rooster all in this week and now one pullet all in the last couple days! I'll take care of the problem when I see it again I was just to slow getting to my gun today! My question is with that much missing so quick do you thank it's a family of pups and a male and female hunting for them or is this one greedy fox?
Thanks for any suggestion! I set rubber cleated traps and live cage trap also today!

[fishhead]

It's probably a male providing for his family.

[HTG_zoo]

This time of year they are most likely feeding their young. If you kill the male, the female will hunt more, so don't relax after you get the 1.

[Backfourty,MI.]

I hope you catch them! It's a bummer when you have to worry about that stuff in broad daylight! You can't lock them up 24/7.

[fishhead]

This is a good reason to have a dependable dog in the yard.

[mary,tx]

When we lived in Colorado, I had 19 young chickens in a chicken tractor that I knew was not as secure as it should be. I figured if I lost a chicken, I'd work on making it more secure. One morning I walked out to see a fox in the backyard, and found that he had taken 14!!! of my chickens before I got out there. The children all told me they'd seen on Kratt's Creatures that a fox will take them like that, one after another, and bury them for later. Unfortunately, I guess I had missed that show.

That said, yea, this time of year you might have a mama feeding pups. That happened to us a year or two ago. A mama fox set up housekeeping and had pups in one of the old barns, very close to the chicken coop. That was the year we found out that, no, getting a donkey will not take care of a fox problem.