Foxes

[Sue]

My sister and I were on the allotment on Sunday, sifting soil (couch grass roots) and a fox strolled down the allotment path not ten foot away from us. He/she patrolled around both my allotments - then exited through a hole in the fence of a house backing on to the allotment site.
Are they always this bold?

I know that the foxes must visit frequently as any newly dug ground gets turned over, big holes in my new strawberry bed with dangling roots was the latest damage so had to resort to sticking kebab sticks everywhere to deter them.
Sue

[Peter]

Are they always this bold?

If they get used to humans, especially via being fed, they cease to regard us as a threat.

On an allotment site they are, as you seem to have concluded, a bloddy nuiscance. One of our sites, not mine happily, has resident foxes and a few plotholders initially thought them cute, some ajoining householders took to feeding them.....
Now some areas are unusable due to rolling, digging, food caching and fouling. Plus they breed on site.

Unless you are able to persuade the landlord or council to take fatal action against them you have two options.

Live with it.

Add to site rules the following:
No feeding of foxes.
No food waste in compost.
No shrubbery or brambles allowed on any plots, including vacant ones.
All fences to be kept in good repair.
Any animal holes to be filled in.
All foxes to be disturbed, shouted at, have tennis balls thrown at them etc.

Won't necessarily get rid of them, but might reduce damage and numbers.
However near impossible, because you only need one niave "fluffy bunny" to feed to undo all your hard work.

[Sue]

Peter Many thanks
From what I've heard, the garden where I saw it disappear belongs to a very old lady and her garden is very overgrown so it's likely they are living in there.
I have got food waste in the compost bins, but they are the big green dalek ones and I can't see any signs of digging in at the moment but will keep an eye on them. They must have been round there as I found them covered with muddy footprints the other day.
Mostly the damage is footprints in my raised beds and holes being dug with one lot of very smelly droppings so far.
Sue

[Snadger]

I think I would fall into the 'fluffy bunny' genre! I would feel honoured to have seen one of our native predators.

I know they are hated by poultrymen and I think I can understand lottie holders not being too pleased about them 'leaving presents, scratching or rolling'.
Hen huts and runs can be made secure and netting would deter the fox from it's other activities
I live in a fairly rural area and can probably count on one hand the amount of times I have seen one of these beautiful animals in all my years.
We have squirrels on our site, another hated animal, but I sometimes spend time at sunset just watching them go about there business, and I am mesmerised by them!
Sparrow hawks abound where I live and while watching one last year(there were six hatchlings together) I noticed one had a broken wing. I took it to the vet and it had it's wing fixed and it was sent to a sanctuary. This year I have seen it's brothers and sisters and they have turned into large regal birds which are a joy to behold.

I saw four deer in the corner of a field the other day and stood watching them for ages.

Sorry, but I revel in nature, and even though I wouldn't feed them to encourage them, I would count myself lucky to have seen them!

[Peter]

Snadger, I used to live in the country and now live in a town.

In the country one never saw a fox, unless it was road kill. Perhaps rarely a glimpse from the car at night. In those days I did feel priviledged to see one and can remember the one occassion Dad and I encountered on in a wood in daylight very clearly .

In the town I see them all the time and I view them as urban scavengers.

There is more food for them from people feeding them deliberately and from discarded fast food. They do not touch the rats etc as they run away unlike fast food.

A few years ago I did have an idiot feeding what amounted to butchers waste on an industrial scale to foxes on my site, fortunately he heeded the landlords warning. In all seriousness it was like the Somme, bones (turkey skeletons, whole racks of ribs) all over the place, bits of meat buried everywhere, and the stench.

I even have them fighting in the street outside my house sometimes.
In fact in October the dog and I got within five yards of a very nonchalent fox resting on its side in the park just in the lightpool of a streetlamp, it only legged it when I growled at it, not wanting poochie to chase off after it and either to get car'd.

Personally I really have only two problems with them.

They give my dog fox-mange from time to time. Seemingly the bug gets deposited on bushes as they brush past and redeposited on the dog as she does likewise.

The mess and general nuiscance they cause on an allotment site, especially if being fed or residing on site. Seed bed preparation or sowing is a waste of time, those nice transplanted seedlings get rolled on and that odd white lump you dug up, oh its a putrefyig chicken breast, as for the faeces..... . A visiting fox would be welcome, a resident family of foxes is not.


The conundrum here is, if they are "beautiful wild animals" why do people feed them as pets and upset the population balance, turning a visiting fox into a resident population of foxes? Would they still do it if we had rabies in the UK?

Perhaps I am suffering from familiarity breeding contempt.

[burnie]

When we lived in Derbyshire a fox would visit our garden and cock his leg up the side of the kids rabbit hutch.An old poacher told me that game keepers pee round the pheasant poult runs to scent mark the area and apparently the foxes don't like it and leave.May I suggest to avoid arrest you pee into a jug and then sprinkle, rather than go for the "draught " method.

[sewer rat]

When you're talking about foxes you must differentiate between the town and country variety. The country variety are rarely seen (though I see them most weeks when I'm out and about working - usually when they're heading home about 6 -7 am) and although they can be considered a pest to farmers, they do control rabbits and rats to a certain extent.
The town variety are vermin - pure and simple. They are not even nice to look at - they are usually very thin compared to their country cousins, their coat is paler and has no gloss to it and their brushes are skinny and lank.
When I was a shepherd in Wales (Black Mountain area), we started to find a lot of dead foxes on the common grazings, all had died of hunger! Turns out some animal do-gooders were catching town foxes in Cardiff and releasing them up in the wilds thinking they were doing them a good turn - these animals had never hunted in their puff - they operated on the principle of no dustbins, no food, so they starved to death. Now whilst I dislike town foxes quite a lot, this senseless act just made me as I do not to see animals suffer in any way

[Alice]

I'm semi rural here and I have a big dog fox goes through the garden regularly - a blonde job with a white face and white tip to his tail. Quite striking looking. I've never found any damage he's done. Ws far as I can see he just eats the slugs, slaters and voles. He doesn't bother about me and I don't bother about him. But I can see why they could be pests on allotments.

[Peter]

I'm semi rural here and I have a big dog fox goes through the garden regularly - a blonde job with a white face and white tip to his tail. Quite striking looking. I've never found any damage he's done. Ws far as I can see he just eats the slugs, slaters and voles. He doesn't bother about me and I don't bother about him. But I can see why they could be pests on allotments.

Woah, that's one big fox and picky with his diet.

Just slaters?

Not tilers, bricklayers or plumbers?


Go on, what is a "slater" round your way then?

[pete10]

We have them at our allotment . Some clever people started feeding them
and now they do some damage the pee method does work to a degree.
But they are a pest would rather they were not there.

[Alice]

Hi Peter, in this neck of the woods woodlice are slaters.

[Piper]

Hi Sue, foxes are a pain in the rear. We have a set nextdoor and the foxes are always in the garden, especially in the summer. They sunbathe on our shed roof. If we go out there they do run off. I would love to know how to get shot of them. They keep digging holes in the garden. I have heard that once a fox has made a home it is difficult to get rid. If you hear of anything that deters them, please let me in on it.

[Poledragon]

A couple of good dogs work wonders. As does a 12 bore.

To be honest, I loathe foxes, having spent an eye-opening three weeks lambing in Wales one Easter break. Urban foxes are even worse than rural ones, as they don't belong there and contribute absolutely nothing to the natural order of things. If they get to be too much of a menace, try and find your local gamekeeper.

[Sue]

Piper
Hi
The only thing that I've found that does help deter them from digging in fresh soil is sticking kebab sticks all over the place till the plants grow, it certainly stopped them digging in my strawberry bed.
Hope he doesn't get ideas about sunbathing on my shed.
Sue

[Piper]

Thanks Sue, will try the kebab sticks.
Poledragon - I agree I hate them. We buried one of my cats in the garden last year, only to find one morning that the damn fox had dug him up, wasn't pleasant. An electric fence is appealing, but I don't suppose my cat would last very long.