To leave some food out for the fox in our garden.

[MrsMotherHen]

We have a fox that frequents our garden last few occasions hes been out in the day and DH has just seen him sunbathing on the patio. We are not rural but live about 50m away from the beach front along a promenade with a park quite close.

People feed birds that shit everywhere but get annoyed if someone mentions feeding a fox. I used to put water out for one with mange as it makes them thirsty, he started waiting at the door for me. I did try and treat him but he stopped coming.

Foxes aren't fussy (except the aforementioned vegetables) it generally gets savoury scraps but if there's stale cake or biscuits it can have them. No Haribo or anything like that.

No - foxes are vermin.

Buying sugary food for a wild animal is pretty stupid. I wouldn't feed my dog donuts.

Foxes are NOT CLASSIFIED AS VERMIN.

Sorry, I've just had to reiterate that quite a frustrating number of times.

I wouldn't buy any. It's what's around at the time, leftovers and scraps. I wouldn't feed my cat doughnuts. She wouldn't eat them anyway.

They are t officially vermin, but they cause damage and lots of people don't like them
If I lived in a city I don't think I'd feed them in case my neighbours had a problem with foxes in the garden. I leave food out for the birds and chuck the occasional thing into the garden for whoever wants it, but I have no human neighbours.

Someone on here bought donuts and honey cake for the foxes

That seems utterly stupid.

So? I bought fruitcake for the birds. Calling people stupid because they spend their own money to feed to feed the wildlife is nasty. Mind your own.

harriet how popular is the fruitcake with the birds? i bought a large bag of bird food (peanuts for birds) but only the squirrels seemed to eat them. possibly they were too hard due to cold. thanks

Foxes are not vermin, just like undomesticated dogs really.
I feed a local one. On the plus side, they take care of other ‘pest’ species ().

ohhereweareagain are the peanuts loose or in a wire holder? Small birds like tots and woodpeckers need something to get leverage against, but loose ones are good for magpies and jays.

*tits, not tots

Very popular! The blackbirds in particular practically mob me for it. It's the Genoa one from Sainsbury's

grey they are loose (from a large container) spread over a large tray that i put on the garden table. I was going to buy some fat balls but don't really have anything easy to hang them off. at least the squirrels & pigeons etc are eating them. i think the smaller birds picked a few up off the ground that had been knocked there. right harriet i think i may buy some fruitcake tomorrow. it is moist and sweet with plenty of fruit so hopefully that'll help. we have to do our bit to help the local wildlife when it is freezing & thus the ground is very hard (cannot go digging for worms)

Poor foxes everyone has a moan when we have built on their homes! If you don’t like them ignore them if you do I’m sure it’s not the end of the world to feed it occasionally

Grated cheese is good too- robins and tits bloody love it. There's been some lovely threads on here about what to feed the birds through this weather. Really cheering that lots of people do care about them

Deliberately feeding refined sugar and jam to wild animals is a stupid thing to do. There are lots of things you can feed them without that.

I leave my food scraps out, seems to be keeping foxes, birds and a couple of stray cats fed in this freezing weather. even had hedgehog poo evidence in the summer so they must be dining in my outside tray as well.

Never had any issues with foxes in my garden, often went out in the summer to see them sunbathing with the cats :D

We did have a problem with rodents earlier in the year around the houses but these have "mysteriously" disappeared without any of us using traps or baits.

Bloody love foxes me.

Foxes will eat anything. They're very well suited to do so. Why is a jam sandwich causing you more offence than them eating fried chicken bones or chips scavenged from a park bin?

I don't know but I'm pretty sure OP's fox uses Pantene because he's worth it.

Yes I am sure foxes would eat doughnuts from a bin. But I wouldn't want to deliberately feed them doughnuts or sugary cake. There's lots of information on the Internet about what to feed them if you can be bothered to read it

I have, thanks

There have been articles saying jam sandwiches are the best way to get the medicine into them.

But really leftovers are fine.

Yes, it was a lady from the Fox Project who told me about the jam sandwiches.