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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

AIBU to want a fox free garden?

59 replies

tiddlerslate · 31/08/2011 22:42

Arrived back from a lovely week at my mum's to find the foxes have destroyed our garden yet again. They have crapped everywhere including on the DD's new trampoline and have chewed the protective covering off the bars.

Everytime I plant something they dig it up including all the veggies I've tried to grow with the DD's.

This is probably in the wrong place but any advice would be really welcome. I've got one of those ultrasonic scarer things but it doesn't seem to make any difference to the little buggers.

OP posts:

LineRunner · 31/08/2011 23:30

Then, OP, I would suggest you follow the advice on this thread and also have a look at your fencing. You may need to think about high panels.

Also, who is leaving food out that is attracting the foxes in your neighbourhood? It might not be you, but it's someone in your immediate area. Have an ask around, and make sure that bins are tightly closed up.

Sometimes people think they're being kind to wildlife by leaving food out, but, [garden birds excepted via special feeders], if breeding patterns are altered by too much food there will be a massive spike in pest populations (foxes, pigeons, rats etc) and councils come under pressure to cull.

The best solution is cutting off the food supply.

worraliberty · 31/08/2011 23:35

I want to live in worras house!

strokes chin Are you saying you want to sit in my garden and chew on my kid's trainers?

I think there are fetish sites for that sort of thing

worraliberty · 31/08/2011 23:37

LineRunner I have 6ft panels all round my garden and the foxes make light work of leaping up and over them.

Perhaps it's an urban thing and they're made of elastic or something?

Pagwatch · 01/09/2011 10:32

Yes. We have minimum 6ft fencing. It is nearer 10ft in some places.

Perhaps they are like spiderfoxes or something?

CogitoErgoSometimes · 01/09/2011 10:57

YANBU... We've got foxes in the gardens here and they're a bloody nuisance. Bold as brass & scared of nothing. I've lived in the same place for 20 years and we never used to see any, but the last year or two they've been turning up three at a time. The council won't deal with them and I'm seriously considering calling in pest control.

pippilongsmurfing · 01/09/2011 10:57

Hehehe to weeing in the garden

bubby64 · 01/09/2011 11:08

YNBU.. We have had fox's visit our garden, and our dogs love to roll in fox poo. It can get very frustrating bathing a stinky dog in shampoo and tomato juice for the 3rd time in one week! I don't know how to stop them though, as everything we tried has failed, even the dogs are no deterrent!

Pseudo341 · 01/09/2011 11:17

We have a similar problem, fox crap all over the kids climbing frame and our home grown veggies, it's disgusting. They also dig up veggies and damage the polytunnel trying to get in.

FWIW apparently it's not worth having them shot, we did look into it. First of all it's not something anyone with a gun can do you have to have a special licence to fire a gun in a residential area (quite right too!) and it's very expensive because you pay so much by the night and then an extra amount for each individual fox killed. Secondly they are very territorial and massively over crowded in urban areas so if you kill one another one will just move straight into it's territory.

They can jump a six foot fence easily, and the ultrasonic scarers have no effect at all. I do have a lot of admiration for them and the way they've just adapted to live around us as we've destroyed they're natural habitat, they're really very impressive creatures.

I did read somewhere about spreading used tea leaves around but you were meant to soak them in something first and I can't remember what it was, some kind of basic household chemical (not wee!). If anyone has a good solution I'd love to hear about it.

Pseudo341 · 01/09/2011 11:19

Forgot say, YA definitely NBU. Anyone who says you are clearly has never had a fox problem, they're a bloody menace!

PerryCombover · 01/09/2011 11:24

Thinks fondly back to her hunting days, sighs

walkinggirl · 01/09/2011 11:40

YANBU
Bloody PITA.
One day early summer this year was watching one of them in our garden. Walking, standing still and then collapsing. To the untrained eye it looked like it was on it's way out. We have had no end of hassle with them for years now, but decided to call the RSPCA to see if they would come out and put it out it's misery, as they have before. The "ever so helpful RSPCA" operator told me they where too busy dealing with sick and injured animals to come out and that the fox was probably just sunbathing!!
Anyway the fox did died about three hours later, in distress. The council came out to take it away. At the same time found another dead one in some bushes. Took that away too after telling me " thats been well dead for ages love, do you want to see it? "
Er... no.

acsec · 01/09/2011 11:40

My friend has chickens and she gets her DH and 2 grown up sons to wee all around their coop to stop the foxes coming near - it works.

Glad your DH has agreed to weeing round the garden lol :o

cornsilksi · 01/09/2011 11:43

are they living in your garden? You can get them to move on by making the area where they sleep less secure for them.

mycatsaysach · 01/09/2011 11:45

oh just saw dds trampoline edges chewed yesterday afternoon - wondered if it was the cat.

sounds like it could have been a fox.

NoseyNooNoo · 01/09/2011 11:55

We have the same problem. The lion poo stuff works but is expensive and needs replacing often. My DH now pees in a jug and 'waters' the garden of an evening!! It works well.

NoseyNooNoo · 01/09/2011 11:56

Vallhala I can't open your link. Could you re-link?

porcamiseria · 01/09/2011 11:58

impossible, end of. you cant stop foxes. its like trying to stop rain!

ibbydibby · 01/09/2011 12:25

Really feel for you, we used to have this problem in East London, I well remember getting up in the night when first DS1 and then 4 years later DS2 were babies.....could guarantee that whatever time of night it was I could always look out of window and see a fox (or foxes) cavorting up and down the road. We were always careful not to leave bags of foody rubbish around, but they would always find stuff in other peoples gardens, on the street, etc etc. Is a problem of urban living I think.

The damage was not as great a problem as the mess they left behind - was forever having to do a "poo check" in the garden before the DCs could go out.

Woke up one morning to find DCs trampoline trashed. Metal frame broken, elastic chewed up. Was an octagonal (hexagonal?) small one, not tiny, but not huge either. Covered in fox fur, think it was a family of young foxes to blame - would loved to have seen them...maybe...

Anyway. Think the idea of wee and other products is to make them think another creature (cat/fox/whatever) has "marked" the territory as their own. With wee, have heard that it is best left for 2 or 3 days before putting on garden, so that it smells stronger! Certainly think it is worth a try.

SouthernFriedTofu · 01/09/2011 12:47

Can't be doing with the fluffy-wuffy brigade - they are vermin and should be dealt with in the same way you would deal with rats.

Vallhalla shouldn't have assumed or projected on to you, of course not.

SO troisgarcon in what way do you deal differently with vermin than with say a kitten? After they have been humanely trapped do you give them a stern talking to?

clam · 01/09/2011 16:29

So, posh folk wee into a jug and then water the garden. Common types just point and pee on the fence.
Which is Pag's DH?

troisgarcons · 01/09/2011 16:35

SO troisgarcon in what way do you deal differently with vermin than with say a kitten? After they have been humanely trapped do you give them a stern talking to?

better than that! I wag my finger at them as well, then I do a bit of restorative practice

Seriously though - There are humane urban fox people who trap and relocate them.

Rats though, I would poison. Mice I relocate!

troisgarcons · 01/09/2011 16:36

strokes beard

Hmm that contradicted deal with = a perm removal.

PorkChopSter · 01/09/2011 16:41

Would small boy wee work? I have a few of those and they would love to wee all over the garden however our foxes have been known to eat shitty nappies before as well as shoes and bike handles.

AlfalfaMum · 01/09/2011 16:49

Probably a lot more expensive and more hassle than piss and lion poo, but what about cat fencing mesh around the top of the fence/wall?
My friends have posh cats, and have this to stop their cats escaping / local riffraff cats from getting in and getting their leg over. If it works for cats it should work for foxes

LineRunner · 01/09/2011 16:54

Our foxes aren't jumping 6 ft high fences yet, but maybe that's because people leave so much other available food in their low-walled gardens, so I suppose the foxes haven't been driven to it (yet) - but they will next year no doubt when the fox population has increased even more.

The foxes also seem to be spreading fleas like buggery!

Human wee seems to be the way to go. That and getting the whole neighbourhood to keep all food waste out of gardens...

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