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I've bought my children 3 new ducks after our beloved ones were killed by a fox

12/15/2013

3 Comments

 
Picture
Our 3 new Miniture Appleyard Ducks to replace the old ones that were sadly killed my the fox. 1 drake and 2 hens.

As I have explained in my previous post. Jemima our only surviving duck from the fox attack died of her injuries, after a couple of days. She was our black runner duck and our favourite.

Molly my 3 year old went up the garden to feed them last week, as she always does. I heard a frantic banging at the back door, only to see her destraught little face. She said Daddy where's Jemima gone, I can't find her. It brought tears to my eyes, although I hid this from her. Jemima was her duck.

So I located a friend of mine who had 3 young Miniture Appleyards and brought them home as a surprise.

I've mended the window of the duck house which the fox had chewed out. I've painted it in chilli oil, as you can see from the picture. I hope this stops him eating the house for the time being.

I have also re-unforced the wire with heavy gauge welded wire mesh. See below.

The fox has now eaten it's was through 2 of our houses now. It killed all of our ducks and one of our quail.

Our neighbour also lost their rabbit that they kept in their garage.

A fox also broke one of our panes of glass to our greenhouse to take a pair of duck that I had placed in their overnight. These were wild duck that I had shot for the table.

He had now started to did huge holes underneath the pens. So sadly I will have to remove him.

Some of the locals feed these urban foxes and they grow to abnormal sizes and exhibite completely unnatural behaviour. Feeding wild animals is never a good thing in my opinion.

Another neighbour of mine also used to keep chickens but gave up, due to repeated fox attacks.

My children love their birds. Molly carries the chickens around, helps feed and clean them. It's really is a great for them.

Picture
The duck house repaired and reinforced. I've painted the outside with extra hot chilli sauce to try to stop the fox from eating the wood. It seems to be working at the moment.
Picture
Molly with Flash - her chicken. She brought him into the house. That was until my wife said, " Molly, you know you are not allowed to bring the chickens into the house!".
Picture
Here is the offending urban fox. As you can see it is abnormally large, we can only assume that this is due to some of the locals feeding them.
3 Comments
Wild Harvest UK
12/14/2013 07:51:40 pm

This video clip shows that foxes can get into the smallest of gaps:
http://youtu.be/crcHA_j30PQ

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Wild Harvest UK
12/14/2013 07:52:25 pm

http://youtu.be/crcHA_j30PQ

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Victor Fox
7/19/2015 11:15:55 pm

I think feeding predators with buckshot is the best politics. Got tired of losing livestock to possums, feral dogs and cats, plus lizards and rats. Yes, these beast rodents can kill young poultry so we always kept some cats, poison baits and an airgun with roundballs ready.

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