Fox

On Saturday December 17 last week, I was enjoying breakfast on the front verandah on a beautiful sunny day and I knew the chickens were scratching in the garden bed behind the house – all was lovely, it was about 9.15am.  I then heard a terrible noise coming from the chickens, the type of noise that told me no matter how fast I could run I would not get there soon enough.  I did get there soon enough to see a fox with Lucky in it’s mouth running up the garden stairs at the front of the house and into the bush.

Well time can stand still when you witness something beautiful and it can also stand still when you witness something terrible.  By now the other chickens had run back to their pen and for the next hour or so they stayed in their nesting box.  I couldn’t believe it, a fox coming into the house garden in broad daylight. 

It was a very  sad day in the chicken pen and we have now made the fence around their large pen twice as high (see photos) so they can no longer scratch around the house but they have the whole area around their pen, including the vegie garden and they seem happy with that.   They are locked in their roosting pen, within their large pen at night and we let them out in the mornings.   I'm trying to get two more chickens the same age as Ruby so she is not so alone (Abbey can be pretty bossey!) but that is proving to be very difficult. 

We hear the foxes at night in the bush behind the house, yelping and calling - previously we thought that sound was a Powerful Owl, now we know better!  Lucky was my friend.

Skeeta, Abbey and Ruby enjoying a dust bath. : )