There's a bright moon in the sky, a cold frost on the ground and a hungry fox is on the loose again. Bang goes another chicken. He or she has already had Milly, Molly and Mandy, and now the offspring they left behind have been gobbled up, too.

The electric fence was OK for a time until the batteries ran out. If new chicks come along in the spring, more drastic action may have to be implemented.

We're thinking anti-terrorism strategies, perhaps mounting a gun turret on the roof of the chicken coop. Of course, nobody can sit out there waiting for the little blighter – or family of blighters – to turn up, so infra-red technology will have to be implemented.

Trip through the beam and searchlights turn on, lighting up the whole area and setting off the trigger. Bang, bang and the fox is gone.

But I have reservations. Does killing a fox in the defence of one's chickens constitute cruelty to animals? On the other hand, isn't the fox guilty of murder? After all, the wily creature doesn't just gobble up a chicken there and then. Some of it is stored for future use – so I understand.

They keep a kind of deep freeze under a hedge – a hedge fund, you could say. They don't really own the chicken; they don't really want to eat a whole one all at once. The parson's nose, plus a leg or two, are kept in reserve in case times get hard, and aren't hard times always just around the corner? A sudden cold snap can make a big difference to a fox's fiscal policy. So can a shotgun up the backside.

As I see it, the foxy world isn't so different to our own. We accumulate more than we need when times are good, though not necessarily for use when times are hard. Sometimes it's just squandered – we buy stuff for the sake of it and then have the nerve to deny being materialistic. Then we wonder why we bothered.

I bet by the time the fox is hungry enough for that bit of chicken it's buried, the carcass is beyond its sell-by date.

At least the old fox doesn't have to contend with the housing or job market. In the case of a fox, the cost of accommodation is minimal. The des-res is a hole in the ground big enough for Mrs Fox and the wee foxes. There are no bills to pay, which is just as well because the eco-friendly hole in the ground has no letterbox. It lacks electricity, too. There is only ground heat and a fur coat.

A little food, a roof over one's head and that's it. As for the job market, well, all a fox has to do is go out and find food. That's the daily grind for a fox, and as long as food is plentiful, the family thrive and only refer to their hedge fund when need be. All they hope is that it's still there.

However, it pays to have back-up, say something a little closer to home. It's basically the difference between a freezer and a fridge. A fridge is for daily use so it makes sense for the fox to have that closer at hand than the freezer (ie. the hole beneath the hedge) where the long-term grub is stashed.

These food stores are the fox's investments for the future. Putting them too far away (think off-shore bank account) and it could be disastrous. Having them near at hand means they may not last so long because they deteriorate more quickly, in effect comparing to a low interest rate. It's like comparing a high street building society with an off-shore account. One is a lot safer than the other.

Does anyone remember Aesop's Fables? He wrote stories about animals, though the ultimate lesson was about human behaviour.

The moral of my article this week is don't put your chickens in one (nest) egg, and be careful that your hedgerow (or hedge fund) isn't likely to be pulled up by its roots.