Weird garden animal - what is it?

[StrongLegs]

Hi,

I left my hamster's tube out in the garden to air overnight and some weird animal has very delicately done a poo right on top of the tube, and left is there like a precious gift.

I wondered if anyone might know what on earth animal would do such a thing?

The sheer expressiveness of it cracks me up.

The tube is 10cm diameter. Photo attached.

Thanks!

I'd say fox, just for the audacity of it.

We have one that occasionally craps on our doorstep (despite applying fox repellent and having a dog).

Probably a fox. A fox poos on any footballs left out overnight in my garden boak!

Foxes crap on things to assert their authority.

I reckon fox too - are you rural or town?

Gosh, Yes several of my neighbours have mentioned seeing a fox in the garden. I wonder if we could video it at night?

@StrongLegs

Gosh, Yes several of my neighbours have mentioned seeing a fox in the garden. I wonder if we could video it at night?

You need a trail camera set up along its route. We were sure we had no foxes, but trail camera showed we had two, one much larger than the other. And 9 cats. And that our cat had learnt to open the locked cat flap.

Fox poo has a very distinctive, horrible smell like 'musty' x 1000. That's why i it's so annoying when you dog rolls in it.

I have bought a wildlife camera for ds's Christmas now. We have some really crazy going's on in our garden recently and I think it must all be foxes.

Once recently a really big cactus got dragged around, and it must have weighed the best part of a stone. Also today there were three pot plants from our pond fished out and thrown across the garden. I think foxes must like toys, just like dogs do.

We also get our herbaceous border dug up a lot.

Oddly, one time I found that 300L of water was missing from our pond, which is about the top 16cm. I have no idea how they did that.

Maybe with the camera we will find out.

If the tube is only 10cm in diameter its rat poo.

@ANameChangeAgain Thanks, yes. I did wonder if that was what it was. That's not good news then. Oh dear.

The thing is, would a rat actually climb up on the tube, carefully balance, and do a poo like that? It seems kind of weird.

There are so many weird things happening in our garden at night that I did start to wonder if it was a person doing it. There has been no fox smell, but my neighours on both sides have seen foxes in their garden, and there have been muntjac deer around too.

Having said that, a rat isn't much bigger than my hamster and hamster poo looks like tictacs. Are you sure rat poo would be that big?

Rat poo is quite small and neat ( I used to keep rats)
I wouldn't expect them to poo on top of a tube, maybe inside it.

Thanks @ducksalive! So maybe I have fox cubs with very small poos? That would explain all the playing around that is going on. Shame the camera won't be there until Christmas really.

Hedgehog?

I'm voting squirrel.

We definitely also have hedgehogs, but I kind of can't imagine them balancing on the pipe to do the job. It is a very light pipe and easily rolls over. It would almost need to be an animal large enough to poo standing on the ground while holding its beam end over the pipe. It's a work of art really isn't it?

That looks like fox shit to me. We have cameras on the back and front of the house and I check them every morning. Every night, a fox walks across the driveway and pauses to shit or piss right on my neighbour’s drive at the edge of where I can see on the camera.

We’ve had foxes in and out of the garden for years. They do dig and we’ve done a lot to discourage them so mostly they just walk around the garden then jump over the fence.

It’s pretty normal for there to be rats. You just need to make sure you don’t have anywhere for them to nest or food sources in your garden and they won’t hang around.

@TheYearOfSmallThings gosh, another good possibility. We do have a lot of squirrels.

Actually I revoke my vote because I just googled squirrel poo (yes really) and it looks like rice. So unless a squirrel was quite unwell, that wouldn't be it.

Thanks @arrangeyourface that's good to know. I got rid of our plastic compost bins recently because rats kept setting up home in them, and I've decided not to feed the birds this winter because the pest control officer said it was encouraging the rats. It's a shame as I really liked the goldfinches, but I am not keen at all on the rats.

@TheYearOfSmallThings thanks, yes that makes sense then. I haven't dared to google. It just seems like a place where I do not really want to go.

Yeah, I'm on some list for rodent feces enthusiasts now!

Sorry @Blinkingbatshit we are town. I missed your post earlier.

We're only a mile from deep countryside though, so I think beasties come in for little visits in the night.

@TheYearOfSmallThings I bet that is a real thing too. LOL!

We have a garden full of various types of animal poo, but I'm stumped and that's from someone who identifed this.

Yours looks more badger than fox but the location is really strange, that points more to fox than badger. You never know what they've been eating really. It's not rat anyway.