There was a breakfast time TV show note on fox feeding today. What I find revealing is that the anti fox feeding man brought up a report of a fox entering a home and biting twins. The couple involved were pro hunt but here is what the police wildlife officer at the time told me in a nut-shell:
A fox sneaks in through open French windows and in front/past the parents who are watching TV and past (as one policeman described them to me) "two very alert and semi aggressive dogs", sneaks upstairs, bites A baby leaves the way it came but the parents and dogs never saw it just heard the baby cry -and they 'knew' it was a fox did it because a few hours later they photographed a fox in the back garden.
Nothing done to check the story but the police went no further with it as they suspect one of the dogs
The lesson here for feeders is simple: NEVER EVER let foxes into your kitchen or home and if you feed occasionally do so away from the house because many people see a fox entering the house like a rat entering it -and they want it gone permanently.
I have posted before about treating foxes as wildlife and how people, feeders mainly, expect someone to jump in when they have a injured, sick or manged fox. Everyone immediately shouts out "The drops for mange are free!" and will then name the rescue they usually get the homeopathic drops from.
These drops do not just fall off of tree branches. They cost money to manufacture and postage these days is steep. And hundreds of bottles go out from a rescue each year. Well, it's free, right?
If you are a person that buys chicken legs/wings or other processed foods to feed your local fox you need to have something pointed out. Firstly, these are wild canids. People show photos of a "skinny little fox" they have started feeding. No -foxes are meant to be lean because that is how they are built and most foxes seen being photographed are overweight: put out some cut up fruit and maybe a chicken leg or wing every 2-3 days because if a fox picks up five chicken legs it is NOT "starving" -it may eat one but four will be buried and then forgotten because the next night you put out another five.
5 chicken legs/wings each night for 7 days =35
5 chicken legs/wings each night for a month =140
140 pieces of chicken out of which 30-35 may be eaten and the rest buried. That is a lot of wasted food and more than a family could afford -struggling families find it hard to feed their children and when you buy bulk from the discounted chicken freezer....
Eggs are the same. "Oh I only buy the cheap ones and give 3-4 a night" -it is almost a surreal joke how every spring gardeners clean out planters and start to dig up their gardens to find they have grown "subterranean eggs". One found five buried.
huge piles of food out on a plate in the garden so that you can get great photographs of the "fluffy fox babies" eating and get social media likes is wrong.
People who say they are struggling to keep buying the food for the foxes often get money donated to feed the foxes! Ones patreon account was doing quite well.
Foxes have a natural diet that has kept them healthy for millennia: frogs, insects -beetles, moths, cockroaches, wild rabbits, rats, mice and so on. Their system is built for that type of food. Looking at rodenticides and what they do I decided they would never be used on my property and do you know how rats were vanquished from my garden? The odd one went to cats but most were killed as food by foxes.
I have heard from different feeders that they spend £60-70 a month on chicken and eggs are extra on top. Do you realise how offensive that is to people who are on the poverty line? They struggle to put some food on the table while their neighbour spends all that money to feed a wild animal that does not need it.
Here is the even more offensive aspect of this; people can afford £60-70 a month feeding a fox what it does not need but if it gets mange its "How do I get free mange treatment?" You should not be getting free mange treatment that, depending on the severity of the case might or might not work. Check out and buy proper treatment that might cost you £20 =/- not look to other feeders to finance your buying mange meds.
We are supposed to be a nation of animal lovers. Utter bilge. People on fox groups are asked to do a couple of clicks to sign a petition to protect foxes and other wildlife from hunts and snaring and...it is a major struggle. You can go and click on "like" or type "beautiful" for a fox photo but to protect it you do not give a crap. You do not "love foxes" you just want to be part of a social group.
Rescues are now having to turn away foxes because they are overloaded and what do they get when they explain this? Abuse. "They can't be that good refusing to help a sick fox!"
Rescues are run by people who often work around the clock and they have to treat -by PAYING a vet- sick and injured animals. They have to clear out the crap (literally), wash and disinfect hutches and cages and make sure their charges can move about freely. I don't even want to think what each rescue has to pay out weekly let alone yearly.
These rescues are pushed to the very limit and each and every donation -money or food etc eases the situation slightly and the mental stress is high. "Oh good work" and "Well done" and also "You do great work for our sick and injured wildlife" is nice. Know what would be better? If you stopped spending all of that money on feeding foxes daily and donated some money or even food stuffs to your local rescue.
Rescues have closed because they can no longer look after injured wildlife such as foxes. A big City like Bristol has to rely on Secret World in Somerset! The City has no wildlife rescue/treatment centre.
I have been trying to help compile a list of rescues for the UK and Ireland and...wildlife and especially foxes are bottom of the list. Cats, dogs, horses and ponies but few deal with foxes. The UK is not geared up for looking after sick and injured wildlife and when it comes to foxes rescues cannot even depend on the many thousands of members of fox Face Book groups for support.
I know many people do not have the finances to help and many are careful feeders and some do actually buy meds when needed for foxes but at the moment fox rescues and wildlife centres are full and overflowing and without support in future the only people going to be busy are vets as they put down animals because no one can take them on. Remember; with mange a rescue does not take a fox in then give it a cure-all and release it a couple days later it takes weeks.
So PLEASE feed foxes sensibly and support your local rescue because one day YOU will need it and it will be gone.
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