"The fox is on the town, oh!"

In the early hours of Sunday morning, my sister-in-law was woken up by odd noises in their orchard, and realised a fox had got in! She and my brother rushed out... The fox had disappeared, but left behind the corpse of her elderly mallard drake (the last of a flock of ducks) and very nervous hens in the henhouse where he may have looked in before being scared off - and this great bunch of feathers in the solitary-confinement cage where her broody Buff Orpington had been. The fox had managed to push off the lid and attack the hen, but left her lying in a corner of the cage. To Helen's relief she was still alive, with only superficial wounds, but in a state of shock - she recovered after being kept in the warmth of the kitchen.

Now they have to figure out how the fox got in, as the vulnerable sides of the orchard are protected with an electric fence !

(The title is a quote from a song where the fox is the hero rather than the villain - the old farmer's wife shouts
"John, John, the grey goose is gone,
And the fox is on the town , oh!"
while far away the fox cubs are feasting on the grey goose!)