To feed a fox in our garden?

[MuseumofInnocence]

We live in a village. Recently I’ve seen a fox walk past my window twice in the past week, and being soppy, I considered feeding it. I did some googling and some recommend it, some are really against it. Would I be unreasonable to put some food out?

I do. We have foxes living in a den at the top of our garden and every year they have a litter of beautiful cubs. I only supplementary feed twice a week though so they don't become too dependent. We put out all the cat food our fussy cat leaves along with any out of date meat. We don't put it close to the house and they haven't become accustomed to humans- they run off if they see us!

I'd only feed it if it looked unwell/malnourished/injured. In this case I'd also contact a welfare charity.

I just can't understand this idea on any level.

I just can't understand this idea on any level

I don’t think I will feed the fox, but people do feed wild animals in their garden all the time (birds, badgers) and if you don’t have a chicken coop, young children etc then it intuitively seems a nice thing to do (not saying it is)

We've put food out for foxes, at the bottom of the garden, not every night. I love seeing the odd fox appear in the garden. They have certainly never approached the house, and once we watched as next door 's cat pursued a fox round her garden until it eventually escaped through the fence.

In my suburb on the edge of Epping Forest many people feed the foxes (there is a fox living about every 30 yards round here). I feed them: in the winter; to get mange medication into them; in excessively cold weather at other times. They can no longer get into dustbins (as they are wheelie bins) to scavenge and there is a lot of competition between them so I don't mind helping them out in hard times. I put the food on a communal grassy area about 20 feet from the bit of forest where the nearest fox has an earth. They wait at the edge of it and pop out to eat as soon as my dog and I have returned homeward. As far as I know, no-one else in my road has ever noticed me feeding them and no-one complains about them - it would be pointless as there are a good 4 or 5 living in various places around our road and crossing through our cul-de-sac every single night

And, for those who say they are vermin - they are protected by wildlife protection law!

We also have an enormous badger that visits, he just seems to have a sniff around the garden.

A big NO from me. I live in an outer London suburb and urban foxes are a real menace. They break open bin bags and then the rats arrive. It's happened 3 times now. The Council have told us not even to feed the birds, let alone foxes. My neighbour lost her pet rabbits, in broad daylight. One came through my dd's cat-flap. She came home from shopping and it was sitting at the top of the stairs.

It's not good for foxes either. It destroys the natural balance where weaker ones don't survive and grow to maturity in an area where there isn't enough food to maintain the population.

Please, don't.

Please don't put food out. You may intend it for the fox but it will almost certainly encourage rats too.

Foxes are pest animals that often need culling.dont encourage them!!

Op - just because you don't have a chicken coop or young children doesn't make it right to feed foxes. Other people do. Foxes don't confine themselves to your garden.

And Mrsjoyful If there are 4/5 foxes passing through your suburban cul de sac every night, no wonder there's competition for food. Your feeding them makes the problem worse. It means more foxes struggling to survive.

I don't think I will be shooting my one visitng fox any time soon.

God Lord no. A women at my mums house did it and they would keep us up to all hours of the night screaming.

My mum even called the council for advice and apparently we live in between two dens so there was a higher number of foxes about. So nothing they could do.

It's literally not even the mess just the noise that caused me the most issues.

Extraordinary.

No, they're a pain in the arse

Apparently stating facts is against Mumsnet Talk guidelines.

But the law is quite clear www.gov.uk/guidance/foxes-moles-and-mink-how-to-protect-your-property-from-damage

Encouraging any wild animal to breed in an unnatural habitat is frankly irresponsible.

My badgers come each evening to eat the badger and fox pellets I scatter on the patio. A fox comes occasionally, and its lovely to see the wild animals.

Leave it be.
You could always get a nightcam to watch it though.

Then perhaps people should stop building in the countryside?

Less than 8% of the UK is actually urban, with less than 2% actually built upon. Perhaps your fox can live in the other 92% non urban?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18623096

The urban landscape accounts for 10.6% of England, 1.9% of Scotland, 3.6% of Northern Ireland and 4.1% of Wales.

Put another way, that means almost 93% of the UK is not urban. But even that isn't the end of the story because urban is not the same as built on.

In urban England, for example, the researchers found that just over half the land (54%) in our towns and cities is greenspace - parks, allotments, sports pitches and so on.

Furthermore, domestic gardens account for another 18% of urban land use; rivers, canals, lakes and reservoirs an additional 6.6%.

Their conclusion?

In England, "78.6% of urban areas is designated as natural rather than built". Since urban only covers a tenth of the country, this means that the proportion of England's landscape which is built on is…
Image copyright Thinkstock
Image caption Scotland and the North-East embrace paving

… 2.27%.

Yes. According to the most detailed analysis ever conducted, almost 98% of England is, in their word, natural.

I think leaving food out is fine IF the fox has no idea it’s come from you.

It makes me so mad though when people leave out food and basically try to tame the wild fox which results in said fox then approaching all people to get food, possibly getting pushy/nippy and causing panic in people who then think the fox is going to bite them/their children and the result is a call to a pest controller and a dead fox...

I feed them occasionally, usually when we have food past its date.

There are a lot around here, suburban area, not had anyone complaining here.

I do know they are wild animals and am under no illusion as to the fact they will eat other animals. However, humans continue to encroach on the countryside, and the foxes are pushed closer to towns. It seems a bit of give and take to me to offer them leftovers which will be binned otherwise.

It just ran past my window again! He seems healthy enough

If you want to see/support foxes, it would be better to create the habitat/natural food sources for them.