Foxes don't kill chooks, complacency does!

Well you win some and you lose some. We have 4 new baby chicks to delight in, but the fox came last week and killed 2 of our older girls. Meggs and Amy Pond. (Coincidence that Amy Pond left Dr Who nearly the same day?!)
Yes we got complacent and went out to lunch and left the chooks behind a temporary fence on a grassy patch. They had happily been there for months and nothing happened, but I was always here. We left them alone and it came and killed two of our girls. It is amazing it didn't kill the rest but we must have come home and scared it off.
Funny, we went up to check on them and collect eggs about 2.30pm not long after we got home.
The 3 boss chooks came running to us and gathered round and chatted to us looking up, they were clearly agitated. We looked around for the rest and they were hiding under some bushes. Looking round further we discovered a grizzly body and then another in the garden. Heads gone and guts eaten.
So we have lost 5 hens to foxes in a year and gained 3 new hens from a March hatching and 4 tiny babies hatched on Monday and more coming on Tuesday.
So we keep the girls in the higher pen with 1.8m tall fences all round. They have access to lots of greens.
We have seen the fox running through the paddock next door, all this during the day! Trotting along, healthy red brown, with tail in the air on its way for some other unsuspecting chook.
When we see a fox or have an attack we ring our neighbour to warn her the fox is about, she texts other neighbours and we are all alerted. I just wish some one would shoot it.

There laying dropped of for a few days too, they were really upset.
Anyway here are some nice pictures to cheer us up. Some Azaleas from our garden being gorgeous.

I also have an amazing yellow evergreen Azalea which is not quite open yet. Give me a week or two. It is going to be amazing!

cheers for now
Dayla