Joanna Lange can happily say all her chickens have come home to roost.
Last Christmas, the Kirrawee grandmother was upset when a fox got into her backyard and killed all her seven chickens.
She was just recovering from a previous attack two months before when a fox had killed five of her chickens.
Mrs Lange said that in 52 years of keeping chickens, this had never happened before.
Mrs Lange loves keeping chooks in her backyard and after getting ten more several weeks ago she was determined to keep them.
Two weeks ago Sutherland Shire Council loaned her a trap to catch any foxes that came visiting late at night.
“I had to protect my little chickens,” she said.
“A council officer brought around the trap and explained how it works.”
Last Saturday morning the trap caught a fox.
“My neighbour heard a noise in the backyard about 5am which was the fox scratching to get out of the trap,” Mr Lange said.
“When I came out into the backyard later she called out, ‘I hope your birds are okay because I heard a noise.’
“When I went out to check, the fox was in the trap going berserk. I had been told I had to cover it up and ring the council.
“They don’t normally work Saturdays, but someone was there and a council worker came out around midday and took the fox away.
“The fox was a female and only about seven months old.”
Mrs Lange said she is determined to keep the trap.
“I’m not giving it back,” she said. “I’ll pay for it. I want that trap here because there are more foxes around.”
Mrs Lange is taken extra precautions to protect her chickens.
“I always lock them up in the shed when I go out. The shed as a concrete floor and is lined with metal plates on the inside. There is no way anything can get inside.
“I need my girls back,” Mrs Lange said about her chickens.
“I need the life in my back garden otherwise it is too dead there. It’s nice when the kids next door come in to feed them.”
