Fox this!

We have seen and heard all sorts of wildlife since moving out here to the Hill Country, but we haven't yet been host to any particular species. Until recently.

Just yesterday, we discovered three young fox babies (foxettes?) by our barn. Not only were they playing under the plum trees by the barn, but they seemed to be right at home as they scampered back and forth from the lawn to the dirt floor in the back of that barn. There's a space under the barn walls in the back that the chickens had been using as a short-cut to get into the barn, rather than walking clear around to the other side of the barn to get in. The chickens hadn't been near the barn lately either-- they had been sitting in the shade underneath the guest cottage when the sun got too hot in the afternoons.

Foxes and chickens do not mix, unless the mama fox is looking for a dinner for her three foxettes. My husband recently found bones and fur inside the barn. We thought it was one of the baby goats from across the road... that possibly a coyote had got hold of the tiny goat over on that side of the hill and carried it into our barn for his feast. The man who cuts our lawn told us that the bones weren't from a goat-- they were from a long-legged rabbit, a wild hare. Didn't make us feel all that much better.

When I saw the little foxes yesterday, we realized that the mama fox was out hunting, leaving her three young ones in our barn for safe-keeping. Part of the barn floor is concrete, part is wood decking, and part is just dirt, for keeping livestock (which we don't have and don't plan to get). One of our neighbors told us that the mama fox could have hidden those young ones underneath the wood decking. With that in mind, both my husband and our neighbor J stomped all over the wood decking, hoping that the foxettes would run out and go into the field. Not a chance. Their mama told them to stay put and that's exactly what they did. J, by the way, drove right over here when he found out we had foxes... and he told us how lucky we were. What?! Then he offered to loan us a gun so we could shoot them if we didn't want to trap them. Again-- What?!

But... the chickens. Both Scarlett and Prissy were both in nesting boxes inside the coop when I saw those foxes, so I just had to gather up Audrey and Mammy, who were happy to follow me into the coop as soon as I showed them that I had a whole slice of white bread for them. Scarlett (again) and Prissy (her first time) are in a "broody" state..... thinking they're hatching eggs into baby chicks. I recently went through 37 days of non-hatching nest-sitting with Scarlett, and I thought she was over that, and as for Prissy-- chicken-see/chicken-do, I guess.

When our chickens were cooped up, I drove across the road to the neighbor's property-- they have 20 young chickens over there and they weren't home when we saw those foxes, so I grabbed two slices of white bread and went over there to get their chickens into the coop. So hard counting 20 chickens when they're standing on your feet and trying to fly up to your knees to get that special treat of white bread. But I got all twenty into the coop and they will stay there till we know the mama fox isn't out hunting around our properties. (Will we really know when that time comes? She's not exactly going to sign our guest book as she's leaving.)

As for our own chickens, they're in the coop and not at all happy about it. We have a picket-fenced in yard just outside the coop. Very small area running the length of the coop and maybe five feet wide. The perfect solution would be to run chicken wire from that side wall of the coop to the picket fence... the coop gate could be left open during the day and our four chickens would have safe access to the little yard outside the coop. I've tried just closing the picket-fence gate, but our chickens just fly right over it and off they go into the yards.

I needed some sort of temporary fix until my husband has free time (is there such a thing?) to attach some chicken wire to make a "ceiling" on that little fenced-in yard. Bed sheets. Old bed sheets that I was saving to use as drop cloths for painting. Out came the bed sheets, the scissors, the plastic tie-downs and there I was this morning rigging up a tent city, as my husband called it. But it's working. I now have two bed sheets suspended from the fenced wall of the coop to the picket fence surrounding that little yard. And it does look like a camping tent, but at least the chickens don't have to stay on the concrete floor of the coop... they can go in and out of the coop gate and peck and scratch in the grass yard just outside the coop.... and they're protected from the foxes by the picket fence and the bed sheet tenting.

It looks ridiculous, I'm the first to admit that, but at least the chickens are safe. The three little foxes are too small to capture our full-grown chickens, but who knows how fast the foxettes will grow, and who knows if all three of them can gang up on one chicken and pin it down. I don't want to find out. However, as I worked this morning in the sweltering heat trying to secure those bed sheets, I told Scarlett and Prissy that if they didn't get out (and stay out!) of those empty nesting boxes, then I would be happy to relocate those boxes to the barn and they can sit there and keep an eye on the foxes for me as long as they can't think of anything else to do with their time.