Fox cubs and kittens

[ellsybells]

Hi everyone, we have two 6 month old kittens who have been living inside with us for 3 months and are definitely ready to take on the outside world. They have started loitering near the back door and meowing alot. Unfortunately we have just returned from holiday to find a family of 5 fox cubs living at the bottom of the garden. I'm assuming that its not safe to let the cats out until they are gone but does anyone have any advice on how to persuade the foxes to move on?

Well the foxes will have a den down there to rear the babies.

You can get pest control to shoot them and the cubs but its a bit mean IMO.

When we lived in the country the farmers wouldn't think twice about shooting mum and all the cubs.

I would have a bit of difficulty with shooting cubs despite seeing them roaming our street every night and knowing that they're most certainly not endangered - quite the opposite in urban areas. (Saw them again last night.) They should go naturally when the litter matures so I'd keep the kits in at night anyway (maybe all the time still) and then fill in the den once you've found it empty.

It might be as well to also review your rubbish practices to ensure that you're not overly hospitable with scraps and also to warn your neighbours - especially if they have cats of their own.

PS - have the kits been neutered yet?

The cubs will move on when they are old enough.

It's a bad idea to let your kittens out while their are foxes there at all, and if there is a nest and cubs, there is definitely a fox presence. They'll get ripped to pieces being so small.

Has someone let them out while you have been gone? If not, they should be pretty easy to distract from the outside world. Keep them busy with plenty of cardboard boxes/places to jump from/cat toys.

From my experience of cats with foxes I wouldn't worry about it. Six months kittens are quite a reasonable size and foxes are unlikely to try to harm them. I have a lot of foxes in my garden (I feed them) and even the largest male foxes defer to even the tiniest, old, frail and even blind cat I have. For example if i put food out and the cats and the foxes go to investigate, the foxes will hold back until the cats are out of the way. And if one of these tiny, frail cats even so much looks at one of these strapping big foxes, the fox will back away cowering.

Why would you feed foxes?

Laurie - because I don't want them to go hungry, and they have as much right to a life free from pain and suffering and hunger as anything else does. Also, they're cute:)

Hello again,
Thanks for your replies. Im really not sure about letting them out, i would hate to be responsible for my cat getting ripped apart in its own garden and you do hear alot of stories about cats coming out worse from a fox encounter. Little girl has not been spayed yet so she is not going out for another week or so, but she is quite small ( only just over 2 kg) and no match for a defensive vixen i would say.
I have to say im not a fox lover and certainly dont feed them as you never see a hungry fox around here. But i dont really want to shoot them either. There is a lovely big park opposite our house so they can always move there if we manage to evict them somehow. But how??

I would contact The Fox Project and ask for some advice from people with lots of experience in handling these situations.

www.foxproject.org.uk/

Useful link, thanks, MumnGran - with a helpful page on deterrence to read also.

Yes thank you, will try calling them and rspca next week.