School chickens and foxes

[Knottingley]

Our school has raised some hens from eggs. They were born last Easter and have been in an Igloo run/house since they matured. I eggs are on sale to staff and scrummy It has been decided that the igloo run is too small (it is) and the caretaker has built a large run and house from timber and chicken wire.

We are in a very urban are and there are a lot of foxes - you regularly see them, even in daylight. I am really worried the children are going to arrive to mutilated chickens one day. Am I being silly? Everyone else seems to think the new run is perfectly secure enough.

anyone?

Hello, to make it properly fox proof you need to ensure you are using strong metal mesh - small gage holes.

You need to ensure the roof of the run is also covered with the mesh - foxes will climb!

Also dig down a foot around the edge of the run and place the bottom of the side mesh into the resulting trench so it is like an L shape. Cover with cement then cover back with soil. Foxes will easily dig under a normal fence. The L shape and cement mean that if the dig they just get to mesh and cement.

This is the only fox proof solution we have found works - (we have lost lots of chickens over the years until now! :0)

Beware get this done soon as spring is coming and fox will soon have cubs and will be more hungry than usual.

We have even lost chickens during daylight (again before we put in this solution.

Hope this helps

Xxx

Thank you

I will speak to the caretaker. The run does have a roof, but I'm not sure he's dug down like you describe.

Basically like the edge of the eglu run but underground!

We previously tried just staking the mesh into the ground but the fox dug the stakes up and got under the mesh. But putting it below ground with concrete has worked for us.

agree we dug ours down over 3 ft, covered with earth then stones round the edge. it is over 6 ft high, open topped.