While I have no wish to de-value the pleasure Val Staveley (Letters, December 21) receives from her visiting foxes, I wonder if she would have had similar feelings for these creatures had she been available to clear up the carnage of my beautiful eight laying hens that were massacred in my urban back garden last week.

All were beheaded and torn to pieces for sheer pleasure, not food.

I say bring back the huntsmen to control these brutal pests.

Stephen Lockwood, Meadow Way, Westergate, Chichester