Neighbour feeding foxes

[wonreasleyy]

How would you feel about this ? There is fox poo in our garden, they’re not scared, play in the garden and sleep in the middle of the grass in daylight, there seems to be two of them (not sure they all look the same don’t they) we’ve only just moved and haven’t let the kids in the garden yet but I’m worried about the poo ! I really don’t need clearing fox poo every morning as another chore in my already full hands !

Would I be unreasonable to ask neighbour to stop feeding them ? And how would I even ask them without coming across like one of those neighbours ?

Oo following as I dont know

I like seeing the foxes and like the idea of them being domesticated

Is fox poo the same as cat poo in size?

When I used to live in a house, there were a family of foxes living at the back of the garden, I do hope the new person living there is kind to them 🥺

When I moved in with dd as a baby, I am sure I googled that they were not likely to approach children iirc

That would be my dream neighbour 🦊

If you're new to the street, I'd politely go and introduce yourselves to the new neighbours, say hi, then ask about the foxes and what brings them there. Is there a way you can secure your perimeter/boundaries so that the foxes can't get through, or are your gardens quite large? Id try some techniques like a sprinker to scare them or fox repellant too. Good luck OP.

You're going to have fox shit in your garden whether your neighbour feeds them or not.

And cat shit too.

Buy fox repellent (Scoot is good) and spray the perimeter of your garden. Unfortunately you will have to repeat it regularly. Fox poo is disgusting and you want to protect your dc.

You can ask but they might not be willing to stop. We’ve always fed local wildlife and wouldn’t stop, although we don’t have close neighbours any longer.

There will be animals in your garden anyway.

Big gardens, we have an old shed that isn’t used because it’s rotting so I’m wondering if they’ve dug underneath it ? I see them dig underneath the fences and go in the gardens either side.
Don’t get me wrong I think they’re really cute but it’s the fox poo I don’t like, I also have ocd and contamination is one of my worries.

I've mixed feelings about this.

I've seen some beautiful videos of urban foxes and their cubs playing in people's gardens.
But on the other hand I've lived in areas where walking down the street in winter it was common to encounter foxes and I found it quite frightening. The received wisdom was they wouldn't harm human unless they felt threatened or cornered. But I was still nervous.

I actually once had a horrible experience where a fox lay down in my garden and was in distress. I phoned the SSPCA and they sent anofficer out but by the time she arrived the fox had died. It transpired the poor thing had been trying to give birth but the complications had killed her.

I wouldn't feed foxes myself but I don't think I would ask my neighbours not to.

This is my worry. I will look into scoot

Oh I wouldn’t like that. The poo and the stink and destruction.

Id try and fox proof my garden as much as I could with deterrents.

the neighbours feeding the foxes are helping them stay alive. The are not causing fox poo in your garden. You can apply repellent or fence your garden properly. Demonising your neighbours won’t help. Sort out your fences.

I mean, wildlife charities recommend we don’t feed foxes due to them becoming to reliebt on human food sources, so I think that’s a bit of a stretch to say they’re keeping them alive. A fox is a scavenger and will always find food regardless.

Oh the poor fox 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

I would leave it op, and buy the fox proof stuff

They bring joy and are harmless by the sounds of it . Cats also poo everywhere 🤷‍♀️

How would I feel about it? Are we neighbours? It’s rife with foxes here. I can’t use the garden half the time as it’s always covered in foxes crap or stinks from all the pissing over everything. It’s grim. I have neighbours who empty trays of meat out every night that ends up half buried and rotting all over my garden. The first night I moved in there was a gang of faces pressed against my patio doors looking in. I can’t leave any doors open because they try to come inside. All summer there’s up to half a dozen of them trashing my garden all night, then they sit out there when I get up. I get groups of cubs using my garden as a playground in summer and spraying parvovirus disease laden diarrhoea everywhere. Aww how cute! At night they sit under my bedroom window screaming and waking me up then they shit all over the path so it either gets trodden in or has to be washed every day. I get up at 5am and they are still there pissing and shitting all over everything and I have to wait til they are gone before I can let the puppy out. I’ve had to fence the patio off and they just jump over it and piss all up the doors. There’s just no reasoning with these rabid do gooders that hate humans and love the fluffy little foxes. I wish people would just stop treating them like pets and stop feeding the bloody things. They are wild animals. They survived millions of years before we appeared on the planet and they’ll continue to survive long after we are extinct. They don’t need us them. They are scavengers. They are hard wired to survive. If you want a pet go and buy one but don’t ruin your neighbours quality of life just because you’re too stupid to understand that you’re actually doing more harm than good by encouraging over breeding in small concentrated areas and messing up the natural distribution of foxes. You’re also putting them at risk of becoming too tame and getting too close to people who would not hesitate to hurt them. My council won’t do anything other than offer advice about how to deter them, which isn’t really much use when some gormless twat keeps dumping piles of food all over their garden next door encouraging dozens of the bloody things.

Feeding urban foxes means they cross roads and that gets them killed

Typical human arrogance thinking wild animals can’t possibly survive without human interference. human beings are not as significant as we think we are. Wild animals thrived long before we appeared and will continue to long after we are a distant memory. They don’t need help staying alive. Who do you think fed foxes before we appeared on the planet? Nobody.

Foxes round us have killed many pet cats, rabbits and guinea pigs. I wouldn't be encouraging them with food.

We've had huge problems with this. Because some neighbours have fed foxes, we've now got over tame foxes who come into our houses if our doors or windows are open in the summer, and it is a real menace - for they chew up shoes/ steal wallets (they love leather) and take them back for their cubs to play with - ie they cause a lot of damage. I've accidentally shut one in my house before because I didn't know it was there, and it peed in my bedroom - and chewed the handles off a really quite expensive handbag. There was a newspaper article recently about someone who caught scabies because a similarly tame fox had been sitting on her sofa. Oh - they've also chewed car tyres (which meant new tyres were needed), and bitten through cables. We (our street) contacted the RSPCA as they have become such a nightmare- and we were told that, actually, no one should be feeding foxes. They are wild animals, they need to catch their own food. Unfortunately, some neighbours are still feeding them.

I'm not sure how one can fox proof a fence.

I have 6ft panels all around mine and they scale them with ease.

I feed the foxes. They are lovely and much maligned animals whose habitat is constantly being destroyed by humans. Hence their need to search for food .

If you stop feeding them, they will find other places to get a food source.

The previous owners of our house fed them. They (the foxes) would poo right under our window, and we couldn’t open the windows in the summer for the smell.

I would put talc over the poo, which was a deterrent. And some garlic and chilli around where they would get into our garden. It needs done regularly.

Now there are new foxes, and whilst the visit every once and while, no using my garden as a toilet.
They do it to mark their area, and stop other foxes using it.

Foxes are adorable, but fox poo is awful. It smells horrendous, it is really difficult to clean up ime 🤢 and they don't tend to go in corners like dogs do - they like the middle of my garden path like they're displaying a work of art or something.

I have had some success using smelly things to put them off - vinegar, peppermint oil, teatree oil.

But I imagine you'll get them in your garden whether or not the neighbours feed them, so I am not sure what you'll achieve by asking them to stop. I always thought you weren't meant to feed them, but don't know where I got that from

I don’t think it’s reasonable to ask other people to change their behaviours because you happen to have OCD.

OP, things are going to crap in your garden whether your neighbours feed them or not.

I thought the same, Ive seen one jump on and over our shed roof. I was amazed how they can jump.

Unfortunately the type of (batshit) person who feeds foxes is also the kind who won’t stop because their neighbour has asked.

Think you’re going to just have to check the grass regularly and hope for the best.