The Girls raised the alarm at 5.15am, just before foxy got in to their run. We were out there by 5.17, but s/he'd already killed 3 chickens and mortally wounded another. Her injuries were too severe to be treated, so DH had to cull her.
We have one survivor, my most favourite Girl, who is currently in a dog crate in the kitchen.
Cube was not in any way at fault. We have it attached to a walk in run, and the walk in run has an automatic pop hole opener. Ironically, if the girls had been out in the garden they would have had a much better chance of surviving - they could have scattered, flown up high, had more hiding places.
I know that foxes are always a risk. I debated whether or not to watch the garden cam footage as I expected to see Fox sitting waiting for the opener to open. In the end I decided it was better to know what happened, and it wasn't like that, which is a relief. (I don't know why I should feel relief at that, I just do).
It was so quick, less than 2 minutes between fox entering the run and leaving it because we got to the back door. He didn't manage to take any of them away.
My poor, lovely girls. I'm mourning the loss of each one of them,their quirky individual characters. They were such poppets and were so very loved.
Poppy, the survivor, has had some fish and a bit of corn, and is drinking AviPro-laced water from a syringe. I've given her a quick look over and can't see any obvious wounds.
I'll inspect her more thoroughly a bit later.
