The Poultry Keeper

attila_the_hen-2 · Joined: 14 Feb 2006 Posts: 16

I have no idea what the program is going to say, but on Channel 4 (UK) Tuesday 16th April at 9pm BST, there's a documentary in the "Cuttting Edge" series titled "Meet the foxes".

To me, they'll never be anything more than chicken-wrecking vermin:
http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c180/digitaltoast/dead_fox_chicken.jpg

Although, I did have to fight hard not to laugh at my slightly mental neighbour who used to FEED FOXES (yes, you read that right), and then got all upset and only stopped feeding them when some foxes shredded her beloved and precious cat one night. Served her right.

Anyway the blurb at http://www.channel4.com/culture/microsites/C/cutting_edge/foxes.html says:
The film follows the fox family as they eek out a living feeding on rubbish left out by their two-legged neighbours and occasionally getting into trouble by making a mess, creating a racket, having sex in public and worst still, feeding on things they shouldn't.

One human, Howard, is very unhappy having the fox family around – particularly after his daughter's chickens get slaughtered yet again. But not all the humans dislike foxes. Alan and June love having Miss Fox around and even store up old chicken livers to put out for her and her cubs to enjoy whilst secretly filming them from cameras hidden in plant pots in the garden.

Eventually the cubs go their separate ways and leave home. The male cubs discover the hard way that life as an urban fox is never easy and fall prey to the continual conflict with humans – one of them being knocked over by a car, the other contracting mange and having to be put down and the third causing too much of a commotion for his human neighbours and being captured by pest control experts, Bruce and Jamie.

Timid the vixen on the other hand meets a fox from the suburbs who has followed the train tracks into town in search of a better life. In true Romeo & Juliet fashion, the fox and Timid fall in love and set up home in a cosy derelict house where the pregnant vixen prepares to give birth to her first litter. The fox – ever the perfect mate – takes care of Timid, scavenging for food left out by their two-legged neighbours. He strays into Howard's garden, who has become so exasperated with his vulpine visitors that he's hired trained marksman and professional exterminator, Bruce, to eradicate them. Armed with a rifle, Bruce lies in wait for the foxes.

Meet the Foxes offers a fresh perspective on the clash between nature and the increasingly urbanised UK.

mcleod-girls · Posted: Mon Apr 16, 2007 8:37 pm Post subject:

sounds interesting. I feel the same as many others, foxes are fine as long as they don't get my chickens! double standard I know. I disagree with people who are too sentimental about cute fluffy animals (inc foxes) but will eat crappy factory farmed meat without a thought for the needless suffering.

mojo · Posted: Mon Apr 16, 2007 8:45 pm Post subject:

my comment..................they are vermin around my chickens and will be treated as such.......................but thats just me

attila_the_hen-2 · Joined: 14 Feb 2006 Posts: 16

Well, try as I might to get home in time, I only came in 15 mins into the program and I'm afraid I just can't watch any more.
There's this totally nuts blonde woman who wants a load of foxes, carrying a terminal case of mange, to be taken and released into the wild. For the sake of a brick not going through my TV, I just had to turn it off.
Nothing ticks me off more than a clueless townie.
Amazing how this woman I know says that "foxes only hunt out of need - animals don't hunt for sport" (which is why my chickens were killed and left..and don't believe the "they must have been disturbed" crap either) and yet her cat was "always larking about".

*EDIT:
Apparently, it's available to watch free online for a week:
http://www.channel4.com/4od/
and Sunday on more4 at 10pm
http://www.channel4.com/listings/M4/index.jsp?offset=6&position=6&startHour=18

MIght have to take some sort of prozac type device and see if I can objectively sit through the whole thing!

Sparklepeeps · Joined: 17 Jan 2007 Posts: 1955 Location: Cheshire

Oh I do like foxes, they have a place out there even if we dont like it (however being a new chicken owner I am getting double standard thoughts starting to creep in!). Just like that last guy on that programme, there is absolutey no point culling them aound here, as another one would just step in where the last one left. I dont agree with that mad old couple decided to feed them...(god they must be bored!), but what has driven me absolutely irrate was that nutter who was 'rescuing' them and cuddling them and 'teaching' them to sit! ...it wasnt so tame the moment he let it free was it!!! Some people are just sooooo in appropriate with wild animals. It does make me mad!

attila_the_hen-2 · Joined: 14 Feb 2006 Posts: 16

Sparklepeeps · Joined: 17 Jan 2007 Posts: 1955 Location: Cheshire

fairislefaerie · Joined: 12 Mar 2007 Posts: 542

While we rented a small holding down Inverurie way 10 yrs ago, in one night I lost 8 chickens & 4 ducks to a fox who only took away 2 of the birds he killed.

The next night I sat up waiting with the shotgun. End of the fox problem for myself & 3 other neighbours.

Angela