Relaxed Farming - our farm in your classroom

Here is a lovely photo of the poultry in their scratching area eating their afternoon corn. But chickens are vulnerable creatures and one of the worst scenes that can greet a smallholder/farmer is the aftermath of a predator visit. Unfortunately that was what we faced this morning when we went down to open up and feed. A fox (or maybe a badger) had OPENED up one side of the main poultry house and we discovered we were ten birds down: six hens, two cockerels and two turkeys. Three were missing completely and the rest were dead and in most cases, partially eaten.
So many emotions fill your minds when something like this happens: guilt (at not being able to protect your birds); anger; regret and yet also there has to be an acceptance that the fox or badger is only doing what comes naturally, i.e. feeding itself and often its young! Many fellow smallholders respond by getting someone into shoot the fox (or foxes), some don't allow their birds to free range so that the fox does not see or smell them during the day (daytime attacks are not uncommon either), and some stop keeping birds altogether. Our response is to try to make our houses more secure, reposition our fox scarers (these emit a high-pitched sound that hurt the fox's ears), do more nightly checks, get our dogs to sniff around the area more (foxes don't like dog smells apparently)... and hope. The fox will come back - they always do so making the houses more secure was our evening task.