I used to go on anti fox hunting demos…

[Justjoinedforthis]

..now I’m actually considering staging a fox hunt in my back garden. I am finding myself so depressed by the daily food waste and fox shit strewn across my garden, as well as them digging in all my pots seemingly just for fun? Does anyone know of any fox repellants that actually work, or do I just need to accept its part of city life and make it part of my routine?
Having another animal issue with mice: they seem to be hip to the traps and poison we leave out, and they keep getting into cupboards and nibbling crackers etc that are for the kids packed lunches, I really can’t afford to keep chucking stuff. Have ordered some food storage containers, but I just want to fuckers to sod off! Do I need to go nuclear and get the sticky traps? I know they are awful and so inhumane, but I keep finding mouse poos in areas the kids play and I just want to destroy them. Any ideas much appreciated for my animal woes.

The poison is an awful death. They stop being able to clot their blood and they die really slowly. Which is awful. Hence they crawl away under floorboards etc and the body slowly decomposes, often flies and maggots follow too. If outside, other animals eat them and they also get poisoned. It really is horrendous.

As others have said, snap traps, block up all holes and be ruthlessly clean, with attractive food in glass packaging is the way. And keep moving the traps around. And cleaning more. Mice tend to run around a room rather than across it, so focus your traps there.

Definitely try the wee for foxes! And lights. And again have a tidy round and secure the bins.

I have a fox problem. A fox cub got run over outside our house a year ago; very sad. It was a long bank holiday weekend so no one was going to clean it up, so my husband and the man from next door scooped it up into an IKEA bag and left the body in the woods; we didn’t want the kids next door to see it and be upset and the woods seemed more dignified than a bin. (Also more natural and less smelly.)

We thought we’d done something nice, but it’s like the other foxes didn’t get closure if that makes sense? They could smell baby fox but couldn’t find it. Their sibling took to sitting on the road, screaming at our house for hours, as if it thought we had baby fox with us. It would then run down the side, sit on the shed and scream from the other side as well.

So far, so creepy. This went on for months; tried those high pitched sensors, anti fox spray, chasing it down the road etc. Nothing worked but it fucked off in the winter.

A year later and it’s back! It just sits on our drive or the spot the baby fox got run over, stares at our house and screams. We have new neighbours now and it’s pissing them off too. The guy next door has tried throwing water out the window etc, but it just comes back 30 seconds later. It’s quite unnerving.

I have lots of Ring doorbell vids of its antics; I’ll try to screenshot some now. Has anyone else had this? Is it to do with the baby fox or is it just a coincidence? I feel sorry for the fox that it is still upset a year later (if that’s what it is) but the constant screaming is really getting old now and it’s upsetting our other pets.

🦊👻

I understand you don’t want cruel solutions but once they’re in having mice is awful. The males literally pee everywhere they walk! We had one elusive sod (male thankfully or we’d have had an infestation) came in from outside on a football kit bag. Took me 6 months to catch. Which believe or not I did with a pint glass in the middle of the night. He left droppings in the kitchen cupboards, ate the carpet in the bottom of the wardrobe and once left droppings ON MY PILLOW. I was getting so angry! You need to get the professionals (council or otherwise) and get it sorted. Make sure all entry points are blocked etc then make sure bird seed etc is all in tins (they gnaw through card and plastic). Good luck OP!

Nothing works. I wish we could move ours along but they are very persistent creatures. The little sound deterrent things that cost a fair bit worked a little bit for a while for small areas, but you would need loads of them to cover all areas, and apparently they just get used to them after a while (also they tend to only last a year or two before breaking). Chilly powder around plants you want to keep fox free works, but again, you need to do it forever, which gets quite costly. They don’t give up easily and apparently even if you do manage to move some along others will be attracted to their old living accommodation and move in. We also have a badger hanging around, which is worse than the foxes for digging and destroying plants. As nice as all the wildlife is to look at, their destruction and mess and killing of plants is soul destroying.

The glowing eyes don’t help with the creepiness.

Cat rescues sometimes want temporary foster homes for mother cats and kittens.

Pissing in your garden is only going to make it stink and do nothing for foxes.
The point is the foxes will be there anywhere, the aim is to make it more attractive to use other people's gardens not yours.
So combination of make sure there's nothing interesting for them, make them feel nervous when they are there, make it harder to get in.
We notice that often we are complaining about foxes and the neighbours give blank looks, or vice versa we are saying there's no foxes and they are complaining they are there all the time.
A good way of getting in early is to get out and chase them and throw something at them literally the first time you see them in spring. Then wait quietly as they return 2 minutes later. Once you scare them the second time they find another way round, and if you do it a few times, they settle on another route
Later in the year they are used to that route so whatever you do short of fort Knox it's too late.
Not sure about mice though.

@BodGaoithe your stalker fox is terrifying

Would it be overly cruel to use a nerf gun or water gun out the window on the fox?
Ours isn’t using our drive/ garden as a route; it sits there for hours if the road is quiet, yelping and screaming away.

Isn’t it?! I’m not going mad am I? It’s super creepy and weird isn’t it?

We got talking to a lady on holidays last year who said if a horse dies you should let the other horses see it before you take it away, or they get upset and don’t get “closure”. Are foxes the same I wonder? Even if they are, I’m surprised it remembers and is continuing with it’s nightly vigil a year later.

This is a weird one. My father is a farmer and there are obviously adjacent farms. He had a theory (whether based on folklore or tradition, I don't know) that if you didn't harm the foxes, they never harmed your livestock. The adjacent farm was plagued by foxes killing lambs and that farmer would shoot foxes on sight. My father's farm was never touched by the foxes. It was utterly bizarre.

Maybe the foxes know that you're their friend! I know that they're nocturnal and scavengers, but might there be a way to leave food out for them so that they don't have to scavenge?

We got rid of mice by getting exterminators in. They blocked up the entrance ways and put down poison in little mouse boxes. We were completely rid of them in a few days. Foxes are really difficult to get rid of. They used to get in our food waste bin nearly every week (it had a simple lock lid, we put it up high and had a brick on top. Now we put it inside another lockable bin and that mostly stops them. Previous to that we had tried cleaning the area and coffee grounds which the apparently don't like. DH understandably didn't want to see in the very small front garden of our terraced house though.

Bodgaoithe. That would tie in with my father's theory. They think that you killed the baby perhaps? They're always the villains. But they're extremely intelligent.

Maybe your stalker fox is grieving. Is there a ritual for fox death? Would there anything to be said for another mass? 😂

That's the thing with wildlife, it's a double sides coin, all cute and furry, in the wild, but then when it's in your backgarden, a whole other kettle of fish.

I went through a period of not sleeping last year. The foxes were really interesting to observe.

How could you explain to a fox - I DIDN'T KILL YOUR BABY!!!!!!!!!!

www.psychologytoday.com/ie/blog/animal-emotions/200907/fox-cougar-and-funeral

That's just evil

I think that’s what it is, or it thinks we have the baby in the house. That would it explain why it sits out the front and then goes to the garden to try from there. A couple of times it has come up to the bifold doors to peer in. It doesn’t care if we are there, it just stares at us.
We tried to do a nice thing, but it backfired massively! Won’t be giving any more foxes impromptu woodland funerals anyway.

Good idea to get council pest control in. They'll help you deal with the mice breeding in your house and advise you about points of entry. Basically,, if there's a gap big enough to get a biro in a mouse can also get in. If you can't mouse proof the house maybe you can start by mouse proofing the cupboards. If you decide to use live traps take the mice a good distance from your house or they'll probably be back inside before you are! So far as the foxes....well they eat mice.

So interesting! Sad too though.

Not sure how to tell current fox we didn’t kill its sibling though. It’s not giving up on its noisy nightly vigil.

Snap traps with peanut butter
human traps work well too, I would start catching at dusk and did 4 or 5 trips a night to the local wood to release! But in the end i just put down snap traps.

Buddhism is a lovely philosophy. I find it difficult to even kill spiders and I am terrified of them. But I had a Pharaoh ant infestation and they drove me insane so they were fair game. I find it hard to even kill flies. I think that we need to coexist with nature. The mice, I'd be getting rid of. The foxes? I think it's bad luck. I'm very soft when it comes to animals. With insects, I'm lethal.

Mice would drive me insane. Anything that moves too fast, frightens the life out of me.

If you’re going to release them from humane traps then it needs to be at least 2 miles away 😳
Personally I’d use snap traps baited with peanut butter or melted milk chocolate so that they can’t just take the bait.