The Wily Old Fox

Andrew Walker looks at how honing your fieldcraft is the best way to deal with that cunning Charlie who keeps given you the slip

- Andrew Walker

Many of my permissions have a mixture of livestock across the land, which act as a lure for many different sorts of predators. Free range chicken farms draw foxes from far and wide, with the inevitable one or two chickens straying from the safety. In a previous case some of the chickens had also taken to laying the eggs out in the open, leaving a tasty little morsel for the fox in question.

Cunning

Being so cunning, the fox in question had reached an impressive size. He had been sneaking in around the chicken sheds for weeks, stealing a chicken or two. He never once visited the same shed twice or at the same time of day. One day he would be there, then he would not be seen for two or three days. He had clearly been lamped before because when he was caught in the light he would run to the hills. He also had no interest in fox calls as we discovered. In fact, the calls had the complete opposite reaction to drawing him in. The lambing season was about to start, and with the land in question welcoming more than 700 lambs it was clear this fox needed to be dealt with and fast.

Setting up

FOX DIET