Innocent foxes
David Hankey's assertion that foxes kill farm animals is rubbish (Mailbox, January ).
I lived in the countryside around Billesdon for almost 30 years and never witnessed any incident of the type he described. It's sad that David Cameron wants to bring back hunting – foxes help arable farmers by catching voles, rabbits and mice.
As for any supposed danger to livestock, a Ministry of Agriculture report in 1983 studied an area of Wales stocked with 3,500 lambing ewes and found that "lamb losses" were unaffected by foxes.
People who hunt do so for one reason: The sick pleasure derived from chasing an animal to exhaustion before seeing it ripped to shreds.
Anthony M Wallis, Leicester.
4 Comments
by David Hankey, Great Easton, Leics
Friday, January 29 2010, 1:05PM
“Mr. Wallis's first sentence is utter tosh!! The chicken is a farm animal, isn't it.
Is he saying that foxes have never attacked and killed chickens nor lambs?
I can only assume that the fox behaves better in the countryside around Billesdon than it does elsewhere.”
by Stan Bodge, Leicester
Friday, January 29 2010, 12:24PM
“
Where did I claim that?
The letter was about someone not seeing a fox kill farm animals and I suggested that he had seen a hen house full of dead hens all killed by a fox.”
by John, Glenfield
Friday, January 29 2010, 11:49AM
“That's what shotguns are for Stan.
Why don't you explain to us how chasing a random fox with dozens of horses/hounds helps.
Go on.”
by Stan Bodge, Leicester
Friday, January 29 2010, 10:31AM
“You obviousley don't know any poultry farmers then and haven't walked in to a hen house to find the fox still there and every single hen with it's head bitten off.”