Feeding Foxes

In light of the incident in Bromley, perhaps now would be a good time to request that people don't put food out for the foxes. Someone in the Waterloo area, puts chicken pieces out for them which they then take away and bury in the garden; it drives the dog wild with excitement and us wild with fear that he will choke on the bones.

If you feed the foxes outside, you won't get starving foxes coming into the house and biting babies.

tend to agree John- though in general it is not good to try to domesticate wild animals- so maybe as a rule reg. feeding is not good. Elsewhere there is a thread where I fed a fox honey and arnica butties until a severe injury had improved-
it did so I stopped- so it would not become dependent.
But as John said- there is alot more to that story- - than people feeding foxes outside.
Horrible for the child and family- but how did the fox get in? I am not leaving my doors open... not just because of foxes I hasten to add.

One thing I find ironic is the calls for urban foxes to be eradicated, 33,000 the news reported. There are hundred of serious dog bites every year on children, yet I dont see any politician demanding the problem needs addressing by killing dogs!

Obviously domestic dogs dont have to kill to eat though, and I love both dogs and foxes.!

Please don't romanticise foxes.Foxes are natural killers, they have to be to survive, but always kill more than necessary when they can as any owner of a raided chicken coop will confirm. So feeding them actually encourages them to enter peoples' homes looking for that bit extra especially if it is alive.
They are wlld animals so please leave them to live their lives as such.

I understand it got in through a cat flap

"If you feed the foxes outside, you won't get starving foxes coming into the house and biting babies."

No, you just get more foxes.
It's the foxes being fed by people and losing their fear of man that is the problem here.
Stop trying to tame them and let them fend for themselves. If there isn't enough food around they will move on.

they take away my poultry carcases better than veolia!

Thebunhouse wrote:

Foxes are natural killers, they have to be to survive, but always kill more than necessary when they can as any owner of a raided chicken coop will confirm.

There was a David Attenborough program that covered this. He said it was a myth. If left to it, they apparently go back and get each bird one at a time and bury it in a different place. It just takes quite a while and the dead birds are usually discovered before they get to finish. They had footage of a fox foing it.
It looks like it might have been episode 6 of The Life of Mammals

I was chatting about this situation with my local garden fox the other day. I said to her, I'll never feed you but I am very happy to see you.

And if anything needs culling, its all the people out there with guns and knives ready to take life on a whim.