One fine morning, several years ago, I went out to feed the chickens we kept in our back garden; blissfully unaware of the brutal tragedy which was about to present itself to me.

We’d bought a nice big run for them and frequently gave them the run of the garden - ushering them back in each afternoon for bedtime. The cats seemed completely unbothered by the new additions to our menagerie.

They were very sweet little things. In fact, you’d be surprised at their different personalities.

One was scatty, one affectionate, another appeared as thick as the proverbial two short planks.

We’d all grown quite attached to them. Granted, they pecked to pieces any flowers we had cultivated and made dust baths wherever they fancied but other than that, they were little trouble. Perfect houseguests. Or, to be more accurate, garden guests.

The eggs were plentiful too. I’d always thank them when collecting them and became convinced they mimicked my ‘thank you’ in cluck-talk when I topped up their food or water. Was I imagining it? Possibly. In fact, let’s say probably.

But on this day, the normal clucking with they normally greeted me with was absent. In fact, so were the chickens. The run’s door was still closed and locked.

Instead, in their place were a flurry of feathers and a sense that something terrible had taken place.

I opened their nest box hoping they were playing a game of hide and seek I hadn’t realised they were capable of. Nothing.

I noticed a small gap under the frame of the supposedly secure chicken run. It hadn’t been there before. I frantically searched the overgrowth nearby and behind the shed.

There were more feathers and one dead chicken (the scatty one, as it happened).

This was the unmistakable aftermath of a fox attack. And it had taken no prisoners.

It was a disturbing moment. An episode of the food chain laid bare before me. My anger and resentment at fox-kind was cemented there and then.

Foolishly, I’d assumed the fact our garden was ringed with surrounding properties - complete with dogs that seemed to bark around the clock - would mean a fox wouldn’t be quite as brazen as leaping over our fence and savaging all that lay before it.

I appreciate they are only doing what comes naturally to them. I get that. But those little chickens were my pets and I was not caring for them in preparation for some uncooked, one-night-only, KFC alternative for a hungry fox. Otherwise, I’d have left out the tell-tale special blend of herbs and spices.

I now get irrationally irritated when I see people on local Facebook groups boasting about feeding foxes or cooing over how ‘cute’ they look. They’re not cute. They are ruthless, vicious chicken-killers.

A childhood love of Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr Fox has become forever tainted by the reality. Even Basil Brush’s ‘boom-boom’ catchphrase started to grate.

I remain vehemently anti-hunting but now not so much for the fox’s sake. I may no longer like foxes, but I’m not going to condone mindless violence and unnecessary cruelty.

About a year after the slaughter, we got some more chickens. This time we turned their coop into something resembling Fort Knox. Concrete slabs surrounded it to prevent any burrowing in – every inch of their enclosure was checked and double-checked.

Garden time became a little more regimented and supervised at key times of the year (spring in particular, given the timing of the last massacre). Their run was extended to give them more space as ‘outdoor time’ was now more limited.

They all survived. All lived long and happy lives – many years past the point they stopped laying eggs - before dying in their sleep and getting the traditional full garden burial ceremony. Albeit, behind the shed and with a stick providing their headstone.

Mr Fox did not get an invite, nor is he welcome to pay his condolences.