Building a Fox Proof Chicken Coop

Unfortunately for all Australian landholders, some thoughtless person (who obviously didn't have an ounce of foresight or any understanding of foxes' natural habits), decided to bring a little bit of Ol' Blighty to the shores of colonial Australia and introduced the fox to our beautiful country. Farmers and stock owners have been cursing this misguided person ever since. Really, you couldn't have done without fox hunting in your new land? 

Foxes are pretty and sweet to look at and who doesn't admire their glorious coats, but they are so destructive to the native wildlife and to small farm animals from coast to coast, that they simply need to be culled whenever they are seen. Don't feel sorry for them- although they are not responsible for being bought here, they are responsible for the damage they cause now they are here. We can't take back the introduction of this animal, but we must all try to correct the mistake. Our native wildlife is depending on us! Foxes are not native to Australia and they have been eating their way through our small native marsupials, reptiles, birds and insects ever since their unfortunate arrival on our shores. They are an environmental disaster.

If you want to have poultry, even if you are in the city, you will need to provide your birds with a fox proof enclosure for the night. During the day fox activity is usually low, but you may find that you still have birds taken in day light if they are left to free range outside of their enclosure. But it is from dusk to dawn that foxes prefer to work and this is the time your birds will be most vulnerable. This is when they need to be securely locked away, imprisoned for their own safety! Foxes don't just kill one bird and then set off with their meal in mouth. A single fox will kill dozens of your birds, possibly all of your birds, if he gets inside your enclosure. He will not eat them. He will chew off their heads or take a piece of their breast and then leave the rest of the bird on the ground. He will, after he has had his fun, then leave with a bird in his mouth. Foxes enjoy hunting and killing. That is what they do. Like cats, they seem to kill for the pleasure of it. It is heartbreaking to go to you poultry pen in the morning and see your birds torn up all over the place, some still alive but with terrible injuries. See this a few times and you start to dislike foxes, even if you are an absolute animal lover to the core. Don't believe me? Look at the pictures below. This is just a small number of the birds killed by a fox in one night when he ate through the wire and broke into the pen. He killed 14 birds- Guinea Fowl, Muscovy ducks and 2 of my big geese. All left dead but mostly uneaten. Some more of the Guinea fowl died from fright or from smashing themselves against the wire in panic. An absolute waste of beautiful birds' lives. You do not want this to happen to your birds!

The enclosure we have built below protects our birds from dusk until dawn and we let the birds out to free range through the day. We still lose a few birds here and there, some to eagles, some to foxes, some to wild dogs and even neighbours' dogs who are allowed to freewheel about the place because their owners are effectively brain dead. "What do you mean my dog killed your prize winning rooster? He's been asleep by the back door all afternoon". Yes, fool, asleep because chasing my birds all morning is quite bloody exhausting actually.

Let's get started.

Using a post hole digger, drill the four corner post holes for your pen. Here are the guys putting in fencing posts- but the principle is the same. You will need a larger drill for the thicker poles of your poultry enclosure. 

York, Western Australia

What to Do with an Old Skull

Mustering Sheep

I bet you think this has to be easy, right? They are sheep after all and we all know they follow the flock mindlessly, well, like sheep.......right? If you believe this you will be in for a little surprise the first time you head out to round up your mob.

Sheep are often considered to be stupid, mindless animals that run along together because none of them has a brain big enough to come up with a better plan. This is simply not true. Sheep are actually intelligent animals, capable of planning a strategy and implementing it, if given the chance. We have seen this time and again with our sheep. They can find the only way under a fence to get to a plum tree, or can understand that the gate is the exit and squeeze between it and the strainer post. They also know what time of day they will be fed and will be waiting for you at that time. They are thinkers, planners and doers and you will see this if you take the time to watch them. However, they are prey animals and are aware that they are low on the food chain and are considered to be a tasty dinner morsel by all the predators out there. Being on everyone else’s lunch list means that it is never wise to wander off alone, because if you wander off alone, the nasty predators will see only you and not 1000 others just like you and therefore you will most certainly be the one chosen for dinner. There is safety in numbers for sheep, not because together they can mount an assault on their enemy, but because if someone is out to kill one of you, you best be standing in a crowd of 1000 rather than alone! So the first rule for mustering sheep is- don’t underestimate them. The second rule is keep them together as a single group and do not allow them to split up. If you understand that they are thinking about what is going on and not just blindly moving along, you will not become as frustrated when they outwit you. If you understand that they prefer to be in a group and are actually almost impossible to move if they split up, you will find the work of moving them so much easier.

Before you start out with your sheep mustering endeavour, here are a some tips that are well worth knowing:

·         As mentioned above, sheep are herd animals and prey animals. They will always try to return to the safety of the herd if they are separated from it. This can be helpful and unhelpful when it comes to mustering sheep. A single sheep who breaks away can be left and observed- it will always try to get back to the group, if you allow it to do so, and usually does not need you to intervene. However, if several sheep break away, the rest of the sheep now have two herds they can potentially join and this creates chaos. The sheep from both herds will try and join the other herd and sheep will soon be running all over the place. You will not be able to move them anywhere once this has occurred. If your sheep do split up into two or more groups- start again. Round them all up into one group again and try to keep them as a single unit.

·         Sheep have very good eyesight and can see almost the entire way around their body- this is handy when others are out to do you harm and all you have for defence is a cloven hoof and a hard palate. They also have very good hearing for the same reason. Sheep do not like sudden or dramatic movement or sudden loud noises. These things frighten them and frightened sheep are much more difficult to move that calm sheep. When handling sheep always remain calm, take it slowly, keep the noise levels down and don’t wave your arms about shouting “Geddup there!” You are not helping your own cause if you choose to do so! Sheep will naturally want to move away from you regardless of your performance and they need very little prompting to do so. Simply walking towards them will get them moving. You do not need to add the high dramatics often associated with an amateur night at a Shakespearean play in order to get them to move. You do, however, need to know where they will move, why they will move there and how to make them move where you want.

What's Good for the Goose

We bought our first geese from a local farmer- the same farmer who sold us our Muscovy ducks. The geese were Pilgrim Geese, a goose with convenient sex linked colour differences. You can tell the sex of Pilgrim Geese by their colour- the males are completely white (although a very small amount of grey on the tail or wing feathers is acceptable)  with blue eyes and the females are grey and white with brown eyes. The colour difference is obvious from the day they are born. The male will be a consistent yellowish light grey colour all over and have an lighter pink beak and the females will be a patchy darker grey and yellow with a darker brownish beak.

The two at the top are female- darker down on the top with yellow patches on the belly and under the neck. The bottom one is a male with an all over silver yellow colour.

The one on the right is a female- darker brown beak. The one on the left is a male- lighter pink beak.

The male is the pure white one- a small amount of grey on the tail or under the wings is okay. The females are grey and white. The female on the far left with the white on her neck is a crossbred. Pure Pilgrim females have all grey necks with no white feathers on them.