Monday 23 July 2012

Foxes are foxes, chickens are chickens


I've just read Weaver's post about her local farmers and pheasant-shooters taking matters into their own hands and  - for want of a load of pink-coated twats on horseback - going out to shoot foxes (let's hope with something more than No. 6 cartridges), because some other dimwit who fancies having some chuckies clucking around their back yard, is either too stupid or too mean to provide proper care for them.

I know this post is going to produce a load of shit from people who keep chickens, but that's just tough.

Chickens have had their innate stupidity bred into them by humans, who have been more interested in them as egg-machines than they are for any of the modern day reasons, like how quaint or picturesque they appear to friends and relatives, as they eat you out of house and home at the same time as waking you up before dawn every morning.

An 'intelligent' chicken will roost in a tree at night, but may not be quick-witted enough to spot a daytime fox creeping up on it, as it destroys your herbaceous borders in exchange for an egg.

As I commented on Weaver's blog, I am a shooter and a member of the Countryside Alliance (by default), so I come into quite a lot of contact with fellow shooters who will take shots at anything that they are legally allowed to, and these species now include foxes, because Tony fucking Blair turned a blind eye whilst conveniently allowing a lot of parliamentary time to be wasted on whether or not people should be allowed to gallop around the countryside with dogs, at the same time as he was making plans to kill humans on a much grander scale, for the sake of oil and personal/political  greed/ambition.

My response to this non-moralistic argument?

IF YOU CANNOT LOOK AFTER YOUR CHICKENS, DON'T KEEP ANY!

22 comments:

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  2. I'm for hunting with horse and hound. I think it is no worse than gun hunting. Not every duck/bird falls dead out of the sky. It can take minutes to catch up with the bird while flopping wounded until shot again.

    But, to the hen house thing, if a fox is smarter than a chicken keeper,...well, he'll eat well.

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    1. I'm for hunting with dogs. When a bad shot cannot keep up with a wounded animal, the dogs surely can - like the retrievers.

      The only hunting with dogs that I really approved of banning altogether was stag-hunting, which involved running a healthy animal - designed for sprints - down, until it could run no longer. That was truly despicable, and a very bad use of dogs.

      I might start training up a young fox to get chickens for me - more exciting than going to the supermarket, and having to chain it up outside, but not any cheaper, I think.

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  3. I deleted my post... not because I disagreed with tom that much....I actually dont...
    it's just not all that black and white
    as life has a tendency to be
    hey ho

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    1. Well, I would be interested to know what you think - as a chicken keeper - I just do not understand about this age-old and (to my eyes) black and white situation? It really isn't rocket-science, as far as I am aware.

      If the fox is allowed access to the chickens, it will come back every day - as it has been doing for hundreds or thousands of years - and take one away with it.

      A poor attempt to deny access to the whole flock will mean - and you know this is true - that it will kill the ENTIRE flock, then go away with one, or maybe two. That's just what they do, when humans fuck it all up.

      I have to go to bed now (very early start!) so don't be surprised at no further comments from me until the morning.

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  4. if a fox gets INTO a run yes it will kill EVERYTHING
    thats why it is useful not to always keep your hens in an enclosed space....and never cut the wing feathers of a free range hen.... they can't fly to escape,.....
    god I am boring myself now

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    1. I have looked after chickens in the past, and they were in a high-fenced, Auschwitz-type enclosure for their own good. Occasionally one would make it over the top, then spend the rest of the day trying to get back in until I launched it over. The only predators we had to contend with were magpies pinching eggs, but after we had filled a couple of them with mustard, they didn't bother. 'Free-range' is a good idea for humans, but I think - given the choice - most chickens would prefer to be couped up.

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    2. I meant given the choice between scratching around on one side of a large fence, or the other side of a large fence with a fox lurking - that's if they are capable of making a choice. Bear in mind that - for a short period - they used chickens as homing devices for guided missiles, when they trained them to peck at screens for a handful of grain.

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  5. Tony fucking Blair

    I always called him that too.

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    1. He hasn't given up on the idea of running for PM again - he must think we're gluttons for punishment.

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  6. M Renard killed a whole bloody run-full of my well protected hens back in about 1975. I've only just started keeping them again. At the time my neighbour suggested I use the local fox catching method (no fox hunting here). I won't go into details but it involved tying a long piece of strong fishing line to a tree, a large hook, and a lump of old meat. I DID NOT follow his advice; I just stayed henless.

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  7. Sorry to be pedantic, but Reynard could not have killed the whole run-full of 'well-protected' hens. That would have been oxymoronic.

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    1. When ours were literally 'free range' they were fine. They roosted anywhere they fancied in our huge barn, and Mr Renard dined elsewhere!

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  8. As a footnote to this post, I ought to add that your average land-owner encourages the age-old and simplistic country belief that foxes will always outwit humans, because of one plainly obvious conflict of interest.

    Pheasant-shoots have to release all the birds into the open, otherwise they would not be able to shoot them in the autumn. Pheasants are even more stupid than chickens, preferring to walk when they can fly perfectly well - it takes beaters to get them into the air for the sake of the guns.

    Up in Scotland, they would have you believe that the moors and glens are teeming with hawks which need 'controlling', for the same reasons concerning grouse.

    Foxes would survive very well on the millions of rabbits infesting the British Isles (despite mixy) if they could not get into chicken-runs, but foxes are currently suffering from rampant mange, and dying because they cannot receive the simple treatment given to domestic dogs.

    Town foxes are doing quite well because of domestic rubbish and takeaways, as are Red-Kites. Whichever way you look at it, the interface between humans and the rest of nature plays a massive part in the imbalance of countryside fauna.

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    1. Oh, and the sport of pigeon-shooting serves a good purpose, since your average flock of pigeons can strip a wheat-field in 24 hours, and pigeons taste quite nice as well - unlike foxes.

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  10. The complexities of views held by people when seen close up are fascinating.

    Me, I'm vegetarian. (I posted about this a while ago: http://dominicrivron.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/vegetable-matters.html ). However, it used to cross my mind that I might contemplate eating animals I'd reared and slaughtered myself.

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    1. Yes, some things are complex, others are pretty simple. There are various ways of stopping foxy from eating your chickens, and most of them are pretty simple - including Cro's method of leaving the barn door open, assuming there any barns left that haven't been converted into second homes by middle-class chicken-fanciers.

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  11. I do not keep chickens. Mr P, an elderly gent who was our next door neighbour until recently, kept some. A coyote got in and killed them (he later found a weak part in the fence that the animal had bursted through), and after a time being henless, he got a few more.

    I've not seen many foxes here, although i know they're around. When the bear stopped by to eat the birdseed, i thought it best to stop feeding the birds in summer.

    I think there are a fair number of folks who try looking after livestock as best they know how. Some are very successful, and some are not. It's sometimes due to a lack of knowledge or skill, but there are those other times where one is simply unlucky--not realising there was a weak spot in the fence, or as the case with a former neighbour, finding a red-talied hawk caught on the roofing of the henhouse. The dogs were salivating at the thought of taking out a hawk. The foxes were glad the dogs were otherwise occupied. Humans freed the hawk who flew away chickenless, and the human who lived there went in the henhouse to collect the eggs. tra-la-la.

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  12. Bears eating bird-seed? And I thought my neighbour's tits looked a bit peeky. They love my fat balls in the winter, though.

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  13. Yes, i got a few photos.

    http://whycantmeganblog.blogspot.com/2012/06/guess-who-came-to-brunch.html

    It shows him licking the suet feeder, but he drained the bird feeder of all seed, and there weren't many left on the ground after he had gone.

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