Wit's End - 7 foxes in my town garden this afternoon

katfishh

I am thinking of buying a movement activated hose sprinkler to keep the varmits away. Anyone tried that?

Knowing my luck they'll just play in the spray. :cool::rotfl:

My Dad grew up on a farm where you had to protect the animals from foxes and he swears that soaking old tea bags in Jeyes fluid and placing them at strategic points around the garden really works.

He also advises using chilli powder on top of bulbs to keep the dreaded squirrels away.

I have a cherry tree with cherries ripening as I speak. However, we hardly ever get to enjoy them as the birds not content with their own personal supply at the top of the tree - eat the bottom branch cherries too

Any tips on how to keep away? Tree too big for nets.

usignuolo

Well I grew up in the countryside so have little sympathy for foxes but even so am not sympathetic towards the hunt either.

Having them shot at dead of night is not an option as mine is a tiny town garden and surrounded by other gardens and you cannot use high powered rifles in a confined space due to the possible ricochet effect. So having them trapped is another option, however as I pointed out in the original email, someone did this recently in London and was featured in the local paper with a group of angry animal rights activitists glaring at the camera and commenting himself that he has had hate mail and death threats since.

I live in an urban street of closed packed houses where it would be impossible to remove a trap containing a squealing fox or two without the neighbours being aware.

The local authority recommends the website The Fox Project. The problem with that is it seems to base its recommendations on a study carried out by Bristol university. The foxes in Bristol seem to be a different strain to those in London. In Bristol apparently they rarely rootle through dustbins. Not so round here where they have learned to turn them over. I was up late last night watching the tv and heard one outside my front window (we have a small London front garden and keep our dustbin next to it) overturning my bin as it routinely does in search of food.

Also the foxes in Bristol are apparently nocturnal - ours are daytime and nighttime foxes - and timid. Our London foxes are bold, and increasingly aggressive. They do not run away when you approach them, they stare you down, and they come into the house if they can find an entrance. One climbed on my neighbour's roof and got in through a broken pane of glass recently. And a London MP asked questions after a constituent woke to find a fox biting her ear one night. She was interviewed on tv about it and it was clearly true.

The government's response is that foxes can be killed by humane methods. In central London that only offers trapping and the attendant hate mail from the loony animal fringe. At present I am thinking of putting broken glass along all the available wall tops around my garden where they might climb in. I have filled the holes to date with stones (Tetley tea bags in Jeyes fluid do not work). My OH has offered to water the garden "au naturel" but is so fed up he is threatening to poison them.

I honestly think the problem is threefold. One current research is defective: they are more numerous, more aggressive in town than researchers, and animal lovers want to admit. Two daft townies are feeding them which is increasing their numbers. Three both government and local authorities have abdicated all responsibility for dealing with them in town, and the problem is getting worse.

mardatha

Yep, sounds like a nightmare. Foxes are supposed to roam free over many acres of open ground. What they're doing isn't natural and isn't doing them - or the people - any good at all. They will over-breed and get weakened by disease and spread it around pets. Nightmare.

chirpychick

Blimey im perhaps a little naive but i thought it was only us that was experiencing so many foxes.
Last summer they came into my garden and killed my 3 guinea pigs
Ive since got more and moved the hutch to the backdoor and put it on a raised platform and had no issues, they are also covered every night.

But we live on the outskirts of a town and in a fairly new estate and there are just hundreds of them!!

They dont even run out of the way of the headlights of the car any more.

When i walk my 3 dogs (who are little shih tzu's) they follow us! so ive had to start walking them different times of the day but they dont just come out at night, they are around all the time but more at night.

The noise is horrendous!

I find it quite intimidating how many there are.

Also i know its not as bad as the op's situation but where they arent in a garden or in one specific location nothing can be done about the population on our estate.

The dogs peeing in the garden doesnt deter them (as i said i have 3 dogs 2 males 1 girl) hubby pee'd around the garden too - i had to laugh about the person who said her hubby avoided the composter because mine does too LOL.

I think a more nationwide solution needs to be thought up.

trudiha

onestep wrote: »

Borrow a friend's (big) dog for a few days; the foxes will not want to come where there are dogs. If you can make your garden more secure, so much the better.

The dog thing doesn't work. I have a mastiff and a rottie and I still have to pick up fox poo from my garden.

onestep

trudiha wrote: »

The dog thing doesn't work. I have a mastiff and a rottie and I still have to pick up fox poo from my garden.

sorry it doesn't work for you; it works for us Might depend on gender and/or neutering perhaps?

If the foxes are causing the OP (or anyone else) so much concern then either shooting or poison is the ultimate answer (and I don't make either suggestion lightly). Rehoming just pushes the problem elsewhere. Using a hose is fine if you can do it consistently enough, and the garden is small.

lostinrates

chirpychick wrote: »

her hubby avoided the composter because mine does too LOL.

Its not so much that he avoids the compost, he'll happily piddle on it, but rather that the boundary between fox and chooks takes priority for him. I keep him drinking all weekend but there is only so much one chap can produce!

irnbru_2

usignuolo wrote: »

I do not understand how they can survive here as there is another large family of foxes in the garden over the road, 10 yards away, in a house which has been empty for some time.

Report the empty house.

lostinrates

trudiha wrote: »

The dog thing doesn't work. I have a mastiff and a rottie and I still have to pick up fox poo from my garden.

That's interesting I wonder if it could indeed be a gender/nuetering thing. We get no fox poo in the garden r yard at all. In the snow there were tracks that made a loop around the yard/garden but not into it....where as the dogs tracks weren't all round the edge of the boundary.

I have large hounds too.


I think its important with reference ti ''nature'' to remember most f our land in UK is not ''natural''. Any larger natural predators are gone, and rural landscapes often refered to are very mad influenced, though can be nature friendly and observant.

mrbadexample

katfishh wrote: »

I am thinking of buying a movement activated hose sprinkler to keep the varmits away. Anyone tried that?

Soon. Just got to get it set up.