Chickens become secret weapon in war on foxes

 Landholders are used to keeping predators away from chickens, but one landholder is using his feathered friends to win the fight against foxes. 

Brunswick landholder Mike Jack has caught four foxes in just a few months—without bait, carcasses, or his chooks going off the lay—thanks to the clever integration of a fox trap into his chicken coop.

The trap, positioned directly beneath where the chickens roost, exploits foxes' natural behaviour. 

“They sneak around the pen and lo and behold—there’s a nice hole in the side. They can’t help themselves,” said Mike.

Mike built the chicken coop himself, making it fox-proof—impossible to dig under or break into—and fitted it with an automatic door so the chooks put themselves to bed each night.

He further customised the coop to suit the trap by cutting a hole in the hen house just big enough for it and placed the bulk of the trap inside the house, with the mouth of the trap jutting out from the wall.  He also added star pickets for stability. Each evening, Mike simply lifts the trap’s door and sets the catch before heading inside. 

Asked how he came up with the idea, Mike laughed.

“It’s logical,” he said. “I was thinking about how I wanted to bait the trap, but most people use a dead chook or something like that. I didn’t want anything stinking up the place.”

It’s proven to be a practical and humane solution, with no need for bait and no ill effects on the hens or egg-laying.

“That was my one concern,” said Mike, when asked how the chooks reacted to foxes being caught in the coop. “But no, no behavioural changes at all. They don’t seem to care.”

Mike sourced the trap from Peel-Harvey Biosecurity Group (PHBG) after seeing it at a local agricultural show.

“I was at the Harvey or Waroona show, saw PHBG’s tent, and noticed the fox trap—it was longer and better quality than most of what you see out there. I asked if I could buy one, but when I said I was a local landholder PHBG offered to drop it off, for free! That was brilliant.”

As a recognised biosecurity group, PHBG offers a free lending library of pest control equipment to help local landholders—like Mike—tackle invasive species besides foxes, including rabbits, feral pigs and weeds.