Fox in the Hen House!!!

I LOVE animals, love seeing them, hearing them, being with them. But, what about we one animal threatens the life of those around you..?

This morning in the wee hours we had a fox on the property, this fox was hunting breakfast. Unfortunately, it wasn’t hunting rats and mice, but our chickens and guinea fowl.

It left briefly and we thought that maybe it would go home. No, it came straight back forcing us to deal with the problem.

Over the last 12 months, we have had a fox and an eagle problem. We have lost about 20 chickens and 7 guinea fowl.

Now, with the wedgetail eagles, we take the line that ” they are Australian natives that need to eat” . With the foxes, however, they are feral animals just the same as wild dogs, cats, rabbits, dear, cane toads, and pigs. The drought has meant that we have an all you can eat buffet on tap.

Our chickens and guinea fowl are free-range animals, the fox that came in knows this and was a young one from the litter raised this year. We don’t like having to kill anything, but this fellow had to go and this morning was the day.

I border the line of animal liberationist and animal control, I can see both sides of the debate, but at what stage do we make a decision?

For us, it was the fact that this fox could easily take our fox terrier pup and has taken a lot of our livestock.

With the drought, the animals around our home have thrived due to the buffet that is on the property which is great for the wedgetail eagles who have raised 2 chicks that have now fledged ( yep, keeping an eye on Chilli now). The wedgies have taken their fair share of the chickens and although we are not happy about this, we accept it.

The fox, however, which is a feral animal in Australia could not be left to carry on traveling and eating off the land here.

So, this morning my husband got the rifle and took the shot. Sad as this is to activists around the country, to us it is a part of living in the bush. It is part of the protection of native animals, our own livestock and protection of the family which includes our dog Chilli.

This was one of the foxes off the river and with the rain that has fallen and the dingos in short supply here at the moment we will have to keep an eye out for the rest of the den.

This will not be the first time, nor the last that we will have to take action, but for the sake of our native wildlife and the livestock in our care, it will happen again if needed.