unseen creature

[Digit]

I shouldn't worry too much about the farmers aland, they are the least of young Foxes problems.
All hunting ever did, does, is keep the numbers down so that there was territory for the youngsters to move in to....

Fox (Red) :: Animal Facts :: Young People's Trust for the Environment

Roy.

[aland]

Hi, around here you do worry about farmers they enjoy nothing more than driving around ten o'clock at night on quad bikes looking for cubs, adults, and rabbits and deer, they use guns with night sights and high power'd lights to pick them out they drive us mad all year round up to one AM, farmer's are a law to them selves, they call this sport!!!, One of these cubs has half of one ear missing, we have a tom cat [JAKE] who lived in these stables for thirteen years that has the same ear missing he lost his after a ponie bite and frost bite this winter what a coincidence or is it ???, aland.

[Digit]

Same round here aland, but it was a predictable outcome of banning hunting with dogs I'm afraid. But none the less, as the Fox population is at something like maximum that winter territories will support, which is why adults drive off the cubs, 4 out 5 cubs would starve to death otherwise.
Sad maybe but nature has no conscience.

Roy.

[aland]

I agree with all of that, this fox family has given us a chance to see things from several sides the good they do by the amount of rats and rabbits they devour, but we love pheasants they even travel to our house for wheat etc but we are finding legs heads and feathers in the hay shed and chicken parts but the sight of the cubs makes us forget, like you said it is nature, do you think the cubs go one way and vixon the other, does she drive them away and at what age do you think this happens, aland.

[Digit]

Which is why as a student of nature for 60 yrs I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that we have to exercise the task of control.

Roy.

[aland]

Hello, I have just uploaded to the Gallery a photo of a large rat that is residing with our fox cubs even though they are killing rats daily, this thing is as silly as the rabbits that still live around our straw shed they all appear to have no fear!!!, the cubs are staying out of site at the moment although we have spotted them at dusk and still find a lot of scraps from the dinner table now including black birds, aland.

[aland]

Although this subject seems to have dried up a bit I will had a little more on the diet of our fox family, up to date they have stuck with the rabbit and rat meals with the exception of three large crows just one chicken and two hen pheasants one cock, even though they are within one hundred and sixty yards of a poultry unit and two farms that breed pheasants for shooting, I forgot two black birds as well, It as been three rabbits and at least two rats every day that my wife has cleaned up after, this shows they prefer wid animals first, bye aland.