What a sweet thing. I hate how they seem to get a bad rep as vermin in the US, its the same with foxes here in the UK.
Tell that to our poor chickens. Year before last, raccoons killed 4 of our chickens -- they didn't eat them, they just bit their heads off. And then last spring, foxes killed 5 of our chickens, during the day when they were free-ranging. Yeah, the kits that they fed were cute & all, but we like our chickens more.
Now our birds have multiple layers of security -- electric mesh fencing around the area where they range, and a covered 10'x10'x6' high run attached to their coop.