Red Fox live animal trap - suggestions

Hi.

I have a Red Fox or 2 or 3 or ??? slaughtering and feasting on mine and neighbors hens. I have lost 9... leaving me with 2...

I have searched the WWW and this forum high and low but I can't seem to find any solid suggestions on how best to do this but I did see a comment that Red Fox are not that hard to trap. I am not sure if they were referring to live, coil-spring traps, snares or ???. Unfortunately, I am not allowed to use a snare or a coil-spring trap as I would really like to learn those skills.

What is an ideal size live trap?

Does scent work when using a live trap?

One suggestion said to bait the trap with KFC and tie it to the top of the trap, in the farthermost corner.

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. PM's would be fine as well.


Thank you!

Fox are easy to catch in footholds or snares.
Cages not a reliable method.Fox are claustrophobic.

I have only caught young fox in a live trap. Never heard of anyone being able to catch an adult in one.

Living where you do your only choice Is a live trap. So my advice would be to go with a large live trap something with an opening of at least 15"X15". and at least 36" long.
Cover the bottom of the trap with dirt or something to cover the wire.

I would build a live bait wire cage and attach It to the back of the trap. Then put one of those chickens In It.
Or you could sit up at night and shoot those fox.

Good luck

I’ve caught 4 red fox in the last month in a box trap baited with dry cat food. They killed 11 of our chickens. They’re not hard to catch. I’d put out multiple traps. I had 3 out. They don’t have a problem going in a small trap at all. A plain coon size trap will catch a big fox.

Try bigger cat sized traps than coon sized traps, if you can.
Jim

The bigger the trap opening the more comfortable that animal will feel In entering.

Never caught a grown fox in a cage but they are good for the kits.

A cage with live bait compartment in the back works well when using bantam roosters. A pair of the cages back to back against a wall or pen with a walk through cage on the outside edge covering the sides of the two live roosters is the best setup I have found for live trapping chicken killing fox.

RURAL KING sells these types of live traps

Thank you to everyone for the replies and ideas. It's really disappointing that I am not able to use the footholds as the WWW has hundreds of examples of how this works which would make it both easier for this novice and less expensive for me...

I am going to combine Andrew's advice along with The Beav's advice: Larger traps back to back with one of their favorite meals in between, my chickens... I am down to two hens and they are protected and confined to the pen until I get this taken care of. One was nesting and the other just joined her as the eggs are due to hatch in a few days so they will not be inconvenienced too much. That gives me about a month to get the traps in order and then I will use a few of the chicks to attract the fox.

I am not sure of the habits of the fox, but I have a game camera that I set-up every month or so and I move it around from time to time. I see fox a few times a year but not regularly and they have never come after my chickens until this past few weeks. Once I get the trap set-up, is there a way to attract them? I don't think they actively come up to my place regularly as they are probably denning up maybe up to a 1/2 mile from me? Just a guess based on land use. The fence line from where they seem to come is ~350 yards from where I keep the chickens. To the north of that, the area is sparsely populated and you will find both fallow and agricultural land for about one mile until you get to the next main road.

Thank you!

It has been my experience trying to catch fox also in coon cage traps is to put a layer of dirt in bottom of trap. Fox dont seem to like to walk on cage wire

I catch about half of my fox in cages set for coon, here our fox hang in the farm places so they see all kinds of metal shapes in their travels not much fear of cage traps adults no problem no need to cover with brush even.

14X14X36 cages are what I run mostly.

I have caught several reds in the coon size cages. Most have been incidentals while damage control trapping for garden raiders or feral cats. Mostly cage the younger fox but did get a large adult female mid summer last year in a cage baited with cantaloupe targeting a groundhog.

This is what I am dealing with. After they slaughtered my flock a couple of months ago now, at least one fox is visiting the cage with pullets at least several times each night. A rifle shot can only be safely discharged in one direction and when I have set myself up out there on several different nights, they don't show up to visit. I have tried different baits but only cursory interest but not enough to go into the cages. Let me know if you have any other ideas.

Where are you setting the cage? I would set it perpendicular to the pen, right tight to it. Cover the sides so he has to go in. If possible, put a poult in a cage inside the pen up against the wire at the back of the live trap.

Foothold with catch pole?

Their in Cali

Yeah, I didn't scroll up high enough.

Looks like a cat in that last photo.

Hi Bob, I do get cat's checking out the cage from time to time, but I went back and looked at the video and that shows it was the fox. I am not sure why I included that poor image. This particular visit, the fox went around the cage several times and that image was after a piece of plywood I had set-up moved and scared the fox to run back a few feet and then it came back to the cage looking for an opening - about a 4 minute investigation before it took off.

Monster Toms, in regard to positioning the trap, I have repositioned it multiple times, leaving it in a particular spot for three or four days each. I have put it along side the cage at all angles at this point, the particular night of the images, it was behind the cage where you can see plywood. I created a sort of tunnel thinking that the fox could see into the cage through to the light and chickens that it might try to gain access that way.

Yukon John - I wish. Plenty of videos on the WWW on how that works and that seems to be as close to a sure fire solution as there is.

I am going to start putting out dog food and over a week or so, slowly move the dish farther into the cage.

Thank you for the tips/interest. I will keep everyone posted.