To ask my neighbour to stop feeding to fucking foxes!

[Foxthefoxoff]

This is my first post so bare with me. Firstly I will say that I am a animal lover and vegetarian but any advice on Fox extermination or neighbour elimination will be greatly appreciated.

We live in a small cul de sac of 8 houses. One neighbour has been feeding foxes for years. We are now overrun with fat spoilt foxes that sleep in the road and barely move for cars. I have counted eight in the garden this morning. The smell is foul, they steal washing, we can't have any children's toys outside or garden furniture as they piss, shit and chew to death anything left out.

This is bad enough, but my main concern is that stupid fucking neighbour is feeding them raw chicken that they are bringing into my garden, happily dripping blood all over the patio. This morning I come down to two foxes on back step playing with raw chicken with all its lovely campylobacter, salmonella or god knows what else. DS is 21 months old I am scared to let him play in the garden for fear he becomes ill. They are so over fed they are playing with food rather than eating it. I have spoken to council who say they can't do anything.

I am at my wits end, any ideas? Wise MN'ers

Urban foxes are becoming more and more of a problem.

Op - sign the petition to repeal the legislation around fox hunting.

@Pandoraphile This has to be the most ridiculous attempt at defending the barbaric practice of fox-hunting that I've ever seen. Or are we supposed to imagine a legion of toffs on horseback would come and prance around in OP's garden?

If you disagree with me, I'd love to hear your argument.

As an aside, have you ever been hunting?

My mum feeds foxes in her suburban garden. My dsis thinks it's brilliant and is always going on about how lovely my mum is for making them sandwiches she really thinks it makes them more of an animal lover than anyone else.

You can legally shoot foxes BTW.

legion of toffs on horseback would come and prance around in OP's garden?

Yeah can we be enlighten on how fox hunting in the countryside will solve a problem with urban fox's.

Just because people feel fox's can be a nusiance/health hazard and agree with them being exterminated, it doesn't mean they want them chased by a pack of dog and ripped too pieces in an upper-class blood sport.

My mother feeds foxes in her house! she even feeds them by hand and alongside her cats. They sleep on her sofa and have stolen clothes and cushions. We live in rural Pembrokeshire surrounded by fields.

This thread demonstrates some of the appalli\ng ignorance about foxes and the idiocy of encouraging them. Shinyshooney in particular, hasnt a clue. Charlies sister you are quite mad. People who live in the country are sick of do-gooders dumping urban foxes in an environment they cannot cope with, encourage them at your peril. The can and will bite when they have lost their fear of humans. You cannot fox proof a garden, not possible. They can scale walls, burrow under netting, get in the house through open patio doors, Don't bother to say no, talk to the mother in London whose twins babies were bitten. Sheesh. am glad I live in the country, although most of my chickens were eaten and two of my cats killed. Wake up you crazies

@Guilin - 1) the hedgehogs become dependant on the food and stop catching their own 2) the hedgehog is poorly nourished because whatever crap - often bread and milk - people feed them is nutritionally incomplete 3) they lose their fear of humans and start visiting gardens - the main cause of hedgehog death is dogs and cars so you can see how dangerous that is for them.

I wrote my first paper on hedgehogs and their reduction in numbers in the North of England - I absolutely love them - so I do not encourage them to come into my garden.

In general seeing all animals as 'cute' and 'friendly' is absurd. A dog fox is a vicious territorial animal that will fight for bitches and dominate a territory - he's not your furry friend - he's the apex predatory in British woodland!

Fox hunting is appalling and should be banned. Councils use bait, trap and shoot bu pest control or PTS by injection in the UK.

In general seeing all animals as 'cute' and 'friendly' is absurd. A dog fox is a vicious territorial animal that will fight for bitches and dominate a territory - he's not your furry friend - he's the apex predatory in British woodland! Absolutely and I hate fox hunting.

I have 6' fences and I am vegetarian (do I win the Bingo)

We have foxes on a neighbours garage they are brave little buggers. If they stay put , no problem .

I also have guinea pigs in Fort Knox style acomodation (they only go out in their run if someone is in the house) but I don't want foxes in my garden even though my animals are as safe as I can make them.

Foxes leave their stinking shit
Their pee smells rank
They ruin my plants digging them up and burying pieces of food.
They have actually dug up the carcass of one of my buried pets twice

I would SO get some absolutely rancid bits of chicken or fish and tip it into her garden, then tell her the foxs must've been hoarding it act all innocent like

senoritabonita

I have lived all my life in large suburban estates and frequently seen hedgehogs in the garden. From what I have seen, some of them must live in gardens already - I cannot imagine, they all come from the countryside at night?

We have spent 30 years studying wildlife, and if I see a smallish hedgehog out in daylight in February, I will leave meat cat food for it nearby - not all of us give them bread and milk. I have also never seen one in a garden, that appears to be at all tame.

No, we don’t see wild animals as cute - having found ourselves standing next to lions, crocodiles, hyenas and elephants in Africa, we were under no illusions that they could have killed us, if they wanted to!

As an aside, have you ever been hunting?

No, strangely enough I've never tortured any animal to death. Does that mean I'm not qualified to have an opinion on fox-hunting?

@Guilin cat food is certainly better than bread and milk but it is still not a complete food. A hedgehog typically has a very varied diet featuring hundreds of invertebrates, eggs, carrion, fruit and small vertebrates. Yes there are times, when the ground is frozen most typically, when an urban hedgehog will be short of food, but in the spring and summer it is much better for them to forgage widely and eat a varied diet of uncooked unprocessed food. A dish of meat in February is no problem, deciding you want mrs tiggywinkle to stay and leaving it food constantly, which is a common, is endangering the animal.

Wildlife is everywhere. A few months ago I was watching urban badgers who had built a sett in a city churches graveyard. Hedgehogs do not move in from the countryside - they live in parks, small patches of woodland, small copices of trees and hedgerows. They forgge widely are encouraged into gardens by repeated feeding and become habituated to humans which exposes them to risk from dogs, lawnmowers etc.

I’m not suggesting that anyone who feeds hedgehogs, foxes or any other creature is doing it out of anything other than care and concern but it is not helpful. Wild animals are just that, they do not need our interference and should be viewed and noble creatures and respected - not mollycoddled and fattened up like lap dogs on processed ‘treats’.

Yes. Because you don't know what you're talking about.

Foxes aren't 'tortured to death'. The hounds are trained in how they kill a fox and it isn't slow or torturous. Foxes don't anticipate death either.

The Countryside Alliance - the group representing many areas of countryside interests, including hunting - says that in order to answer the question, one must first define cruelty.

Foxes need to be controlled say country sportsmen and women
They refer to The Scott Henderson inquiry under the 1949 Labour government.
The Henderson Committee considered cruelty to be "an act causing unnecessary suffering", and went on to elaborate, "So far as general cruelty is concerned, we are satisfied that there is less cruelty in fox hunting than in most other methods of control."
The group's Website reads: "To this day, the Scott Henderson inquiry remains the most thorough and impartial investigation of hunting issues.
"And its report is still as refreshingly relevant as it was when it was written over 40 years ago. Generations may come and go, but the laws of nature and the countryside remain unchanged."

Farmers hate foxes and want as many exterminated as possible. And how do they do this? As easily, quickly and cheaply as possible. Usually traps left out in which a fox can suffer for days before dying. Hardly humane. Hounds will kill a fox in seconds.

And re. urban foxes - no one is suggesting that a hunt be held in the back gardens of Croydon to cull foxes. By controlling their number in the countryside, we can reduce the instances of foxes straying into the nearest towns.

Sorry - should have said that hunting is a big part of controlling fox numbers.

And the article should have " from The Countryside Alliance. Those aren't my words.

Pandoraphile

What a load of bullshit no-one's buying it.

Urban fox's haven't strayed from the countryside. We built towns and city's in the habitats and they remained. The urban fox has lived in towns and city's for generations, they're not just tourists from the country.

I've seen videos of the kills, it's a pack of dogs ripping a fox apart, fighting over it like an old rag. It's not a hound doing a controlled kill. And the kill might be over quick, but what about the time spent running for its life in fear.

Fuck you it's not humane, it's a blood sport rich people enjoy, don't dress it up as anything else. So what if farmers support it. Like you said they hate foxes so couldn't give a shit as long as they're dead and off their land.

Foxes need to be controlled say country sportsmen and women

There are reports and studies that have found that fox-hunting doesn't make any significant dent in fox populations.

Rendering it somewhat pointless.

Could you ask her to compromise and maybe cook the chicken first? I know it’s not ideal, but at least most of the bugs are killed off first....

shoot them and make us all hats? we just need a cool vigilante group name?

Farmers hate foxes and want as many exterminated as possible. And how do they do this? As easily, quickly and cheaply as possible. Usually traps left out in which a fox can suffer for days before dying. Hardly humane. Hounds will kill a fox in seconds.

Unless they're actively involved in the local hunt, most farmers would rather get the local fox control guy to come out and lamp foxes with a night sight on a rifle. It is far more "humane" than a pack of hounds bred for stamina chasing an animal over long distances. And even if they are involved in the local hunt, they still use a bloke with a rifle at night to shoot and control them. It is far more humane, far more effective and far quicker than a protracted chase across the countryside. Traps are very rarely used - and when they are it's usually not in an area where they are not checked regularly, it's more likely in a garden with bait if there's a problem..

Don't delude yourself that "fox hunting" is about fox control. "Fox hunting" is essentially a big bunch of people out for a jolly on horseback across land they don't routinely access. The majority of farmers get thoroughly pissed off with their local hunt because unless the field is kept fully in control by the master of hounds, they cause many more problems than they solve.

And certainly in our area I know this to be true, because our local hunt is banned on pretty much every farm in our local area (mine included) because of their behaviour, yet all the farms (including ours) use their terrierman to shoot foxes for fox control.

Fox hunting is not about fox control. If you want to "control" and eliminate foxes, shoot them.

And for clarity, yes, I support the ban on hunting with dogs, yes, I don't like foxes because they killed my cat and can be problematic at lambing time, yes, we have called in our fox control man from the local hunt to shoot them and yes, if they don't create a problem for us, we leave them alone.

That's a good post, Quiettiger.

Foxes are quite dangerous they have been known to attack children and I personally know 2 people who have had their small dogs taken by a fox out of the garden. One survived, one was not so lucky. You need to complain to the council. People can actually be given an asbo for this. I know because my grandfather was given one for feeding birds. His neighbours were fed up with hundreds of birds all over their roofs and shitting all over their washing and cars etc.
I love animals but I would not be having this at all.

AJstylesHair
You might want to tell your mother she will regret this when one of those foxes bite her or her cats. They are also covered in fleas, tics and will very likely be riddles with worms.

foxes should never ever be trapped and left "for days" if you lay any sort of trap on your land you have a duty to check that trap at least twice a day. if you don't then this is animal cruelty.

Foxes should be shot and not hunted.