Why shoot the foxes?

Txt late last night. Two foxs got into fenced hen enclosure. General mayhem and 4 killed out of the small flock. Guess where we will be this evening!
D
 
Whist I do agree with VSS in our area foxs do take lambs. Last month call from farmer saying a very young small lamb had been taken in the chicken field. This is 12 acres with trees and mixed flock helps keep the grass down. 6 ft weld mesh fences but foxs can and do get in. Anyway out the next evening and shot it. Picture posted on here. No more lamb losses since.
Also on another small holding foxs if given a chance foxs do take lambs.
D
 
Smellydog said:
if found in time
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That's the key thing my mate - time. Soon as lamb is born it has a time scale it has to feed within, for a number of reasons. One being that they have limited reserves of brown fat which keeps them warm. But if they didn't get decent colostrum feed early it'll have ongoing problems. That colostrum from ewe in first couple of hours is the absolute life for a lamb.
 
Smellydog said:
Ive seen them run as fast as any greyhound too.
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Yeah, I had one I seen in thermal, bumbling towards me. I let it get closer & closer, until it almost in kicking distance - I hissed "feck off badger" wow!! Like a rocket down the field, didn't break stride at fence at bottom, under in a flash and gone. They body shape is deceptive as they can really move when want to.
 
BenBhoy said:
I reckon a lamb ate it!
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We shot 150 foxes in 3 years on a local sheep farm as they lambed 3x a year, the shepherd had foxes coming in the other end of the stalls while he was tending a ewe at the other end.
One jumped the stall and grabbed a new born.
The badgers cleared up most of the foxes very quickly
 
Nickb said:
Now the million dollar question is Tim , did the fox kill it or find it dead ?
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Found it dead, I think, from what little I can tell from that photo. But in the absence of any additional info it's difficult to say from a picture
However, the million dollar question is not whether the fox killed it or found it dead, but why was the lamb vulnerable to predation in the first place?
 
VSS said:
Found it dead, I think, from what little I can tell from that photo. But in the absence of any additional info it's difficult to say from a picture
However, the million dollar question is not whether the fox killed it or found it dead, but why was the lamb vulnerable to predation in the first place?
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Because they don't have fangs maybe?
 
Tim.243 said:
We shot 150 foxes in 3 years on a local sheep farm as they lambed 3x a year, the shepherd had foxes coming in the other end of the stalls while he was tending a ewe at the other end.
One jumped the stall and grabbed a new born.
The badgers cleared up most of the foxes very quickly
Click to expand...

I had that exact thing on a turkey farm guy in one end feeding the birds with foxes catching the turkeys other end and out of the window its demise came very quickly

It was a bit strange the foxes dumped the turkeys nigh on full grown up the tram lines 50 yds away and kept coming back as if they wanted to get as many out before being found out
 
AlexD said:
Of course, if you keep chickens or pheasants, you need to eliminate foxes.

However, on arable farmland where I manage the wildlife, we had got to the point where there is a beautiful harmony with rabbits and mice kept down to numbers that do minimal crop damage because there is a rich array of predators: stoats, foxes, both barn and tawny owls, as well as buzzards and other birds of prey. Deer numbers have been brought down low enough that the trees surrounding the fields and the plants in the margins are their food, rather than the crop, whilst still giving new deer each year for the freezer. The bucks are all great, as the rifle does the genetic selection. It has become a wild life reserve, where the crop is untouched and all the mammals we have in the UK are in a harmonic balance: nature at its best.

Then someone comes along, unauthorised, on a motorbike with number plate obscured, with rifle exposed on his back, dressed in black, complete with balaclava, and shoots the vixens. So her cubs will starve, and rabbits will increase. The tool keeps on doing it, usually Saturday nights.

What is it about foxes that drive people to takes risks like this? Any ideas on how to prevent it?

NB: Police have been out a few times, farmland is easy to escape from. Residents now call me if they see things going on, but they are not out in the middle of night. They find the remains of the foxes the next day or so. I do a patrol at night, which helps in my mind, but I then go back to bed.
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Is it a road bike ( number plate and lights) or dirt bike. Ether way they will visit the local petrol station to refuel.
Someone will have seen the bike around and know who it belongs to.
 
Smellydog said:
I think you misunderstood me.
Sheep getting ill and or dying is the shepherds concern and good shepherds they are. The whole family is involved and for many decades.
The problem with Charlie is when this area gets overwhelmed, and it does. Then there is to much competing. If an sheep fall ill in the night they will, if I dont keep a balance, be predated on before death.
Do my thing and they have a chance.
The upshot for me is total unlimited access to private land to shoot what i want whenever I want.
I scratch their backs and they scratch mine.
I have months of fire wood drying in the sun by way of appreciation.
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You have Sun 😱. What are the costs.of property, I may consider moving. 😀
 
Found a freshly used fox den yesterday, counted five little sheep skulls around it. Even if the foxes found them dead then the farmer was denied opportunity to post mortem them. We’ve shot 7 foxes in the last week. My personal reasons for shooting foxes are:
1. Controlling predation for our game shoot
2. Controlling predation of ground nesting birds
3. Preventing lamb losses
4. It is bloody good fun shooting foxes

Admittedly the order may not be strictly correct 🤣
 
I'm sure I'm not the only night shooter who has witnessed foxes trying to take healthy Muntjac fawns, I've watched it three times in the last two years, and my brother has seen it once in the same time frame (he doesn't get out foxing as much as I do) and I've also seen a fox harassing a roe doe that a single fawn and it was not giving up, I watched for 5 minutes before I started to move in closer for a shot.
Somehow I think a lamb is a tasty snack for a fox... healthy or otherwise.
An old schoolmate works as a stockman with sheep, cattle & turkeys, the sheep all lamb indoors and it's not such a problem. The turkeys are those "Finest" free-range jobbies that get to wander outside if they can manage to get out of the shed doors... they have a few mass kills every year, it starts with the fox chopping a few, then a lot gets smothered in the panic, fencing and security is pretty good, but the red devils still manage it sometimes..
 
was overlooking woods other day on one of my perms, out to my left from another field i spotted this one heading my way,

a decisive oi stopped it at about 30m the 70gr blitzking from my 243 hit it like thors hammer
 

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