Yes, the gray fox will climb fencing. While they may be listed as nocturnal, we have seen them from 2:30 in summer/spring afternoon or 10:00 in the morning, right off the corner of our deck. More predation will occur in the spring when they have kits to feed, so that is the time to be really vigilant with your chickens. Foxes will move extremely fast for the kill. Generally you will only find a small pile or two of feathers where they have grabbed your chicken but no other evidence. When you find partial remains it was probably a racoon kill; unmauled whole remains may have been a poisonous snake (we have copperheads here), mauled whole remains are usually left by domestic dogs. Wild animals are killing to eat or for defense in the case of the snake, domestic dogs kill for the thrill. If you have alot of livestock, live in an Ag district or rural area (more than 5 acres) with a predator problem (from hard experience, I consider roaming domestic dogs a predator problem) a livestock guardian dog is your best investment.

You need more than one animal, they are herd creatures. Get mental problems if alone. Act weird. Not sure how much of a pet they will be for you. All the cameloids I have met are more standoffish than affectionate. Can be nice, but not like cows or other farm animals. Just very different thinkers. You can't hurry them, ever. We thought about them, decided not to purchase. Have a plan on how they will be sheared yearly. Hair needs to come off for healthy skin. Do you know any spinners or spin wool yourself? Locally, owners feed wormer regularly to both Alpaca and Llama. Some daily, to prevent the brainworms our local Whitetail deer pass along as they run thru the pastures. If worming is not kept up, Alpaca and Llama will die younger than they need to. Llama and Alpaca need regular hoof care if you are not on a mountain to keep hoof worn down. You or someone else must provide that hoof care. A gelded male or two, might be your best choices. Ungelded males might be more dominant, harder to handle. Females are more expensive. Not always easy to get bred, if you are thinking babies. Local Alpaca owner has only had a few babies, 1-2 a year, with his 6 females and male kept together. Has changed the male a couple times, females too, trying for better rates. Still low births. Biggest year was 3 cria. Babies are fragile, die easily. He keeps a flock of gelded males, just for the shearing. Breeding is a sideline now, with his wool production from the geldings. His are nice animals, but watchful, rather than friendly, despite much kindly handling. He likes them, works with them a lot, because they can be very spooky to manage. He hauls them to exhibit at town festivals, Fairs, trying to grow interest in wearing the wool products they can produce. Helps that Alpaca are so CUUTE! Lovely eyes. You might just put an ad in the local paper, try to locate some. Around here the Llama are cheap or free. There has to be some overstock of Alpaca too. They are pretty common now. Finding a breeder, you may be able to get geldings of poor color, cheaply to a good home. Or not, because some folks have inflated values on the animals. Trying to get their money back out of them. They are not as valuable now, as they used to be when rare.

Warning on the pour-on cattle wormer. I asked the Vet about why it is not used on horses? She said from trying it on her own equines, that it causes lumps and soreness on the spinal skin area. Horses were unusable for a month while they healed up. Horse skin is much thinner than cow skin, so be careful. The EXCEL spreadsheet sounds real helpful, I use it for the horse feed program, posted on the feedroom door. With 3 of us alternating the daily graining, best to have it posted to refer to. Easy to change and put up the revised copy for reading as you mix up the buckets each day. Added the market lambs and their feed on sheets for when DD is at meetings or school things. I would look at a quarterly worming for the big animals if they have large pastures, not crowded, not traveling to show or not getting new ones in. They should be shiny, in good flesh, nice hair, as signs of health. Dull hair on good feed is a warning sign that needs attention. You can get fecals done, which might show no reason to worm at that time. You should alternate wormer chemicals not just brand names, to prevent worm immunity, so that should be considered too. Some worms are not affected by the Ivomecs, like bloodworms in horses. Worms are NOT supposed to cross species, in getting contaminated. Pig needs I am not up on, nor fowls. We try to do vaccinations in the Spring, since many things are insect borne to spread. But having some shots given at different (months) times could spread out the cost, instead of taking such a big hit at one time. We vaccinate ourselves, with only giving one kind of shots each week. So horses could take a month to get all their 4 boosters. Cows could take 2 weeks for boosters. Too many kinds of shots at one time (unless it came as a multi-way injection), can make any animal sick with bad reactions. All those chemicals just over-whelm their system!! Unles you have new animals, usually that just means one booster each year, per disease. Something else with the EXCEL method, is you could set up a reminder program in your computer calendar. Reminder could tell you to order vaccines and wormer for which animals, then another reminder to give them after meds arrive. If you set reminder up again when you mark animals/birds done, then you should be set for the next session. You could also write a reminder on your wall calendar in the appropriate months to order meds, then when you DID give them. Notes ahead could be colored, to get your attention when the pages are changed. Not sure if you could wash the small birds, chickens, to ensure they get problems attended to in early spring, fall before winter. My friend used to wash/dip her birds regular, had a couple dozen. They were shown and she said the dipping bath really took care of LOTS of problems easier than other methods. She lined up her tall garbage cans, first with soap/cleaner, then a couple of clean water rinse cans. Water was warmed, not cold or hot. She held their feet, dunked them in head first a couple times, lifted them out to breathe, then dunked them a couple more times, lifted out to breathe. Then moved to the rinse cans. Repeated dunking, gave breathing time, in each clean water can. Then she put them down to shake off and dry. Change water as it gets dirty, sometimes often, sometimes water stayed clean a long time. I was rather amazed at her methods, but birds did not seem troubled or damaged, just irate! None got sick after dipping either. Birds were VERY clean after, looked nice to show. Never seemed to have any bird problems either like the mites or other nasties. She moved pretty quickly, made sure birds got their air back between dunkings. Kept her coop and perches, laying boxes very clean to prevent reinfestations.

My wife and I enjoy watching the wildlife, as long as the wildlife leaves our stuff alone. The coons, bobcats, red foxes, possums, coyotes and stray dogs all treated our chickens, turkeys and guineas as a walking, squawking buffet line, plus the rabbits and deer visited the garden salad bar every night. Then we got the LGDs - an adult Great Pyr female, and two GP/Anatolian Shepherd pups (not related to the adult). Since the pups have grown into yearlings, our predation has all but stopped, even with letting the poultry free-range all the time (chooks have an automatic chicken door on the big coop, and the guineas roost in trees next to the coop). Dogs keep anything they deem to be a threat to their charges run off, and have even run off or killed coyotes interested in the neighbor's calves. Other dogs are not tolerated on the property (20 acres). They will steal eggs if they find any unattended, though, and we can't seem to break them from it. At least they can't fit through the chicken door anymore, so can't reach the nest boxes. We keep a lookout for guinea nests, and when we find one, we either set up a temp fence around it to keep the dogs out, or take the eggs and give them to a broody Silkie or Cochin bantie to incubate. Honestly, our goats are more of a problem with garden and landscaping plants anymore. We have the garden fenced now, and when everything started waning a couple of weeks ago, we put three goats in the garden fence to clean it up.