kitten and foxes

[BoysRule]

We would like to get a kitten but have foxes living at the bottom of our garden. We have seen them frequently at the back door and they raid the bins.

Do you think this would be a problem? Our neighbours have a cat and it's not been attacked.

It might. Many people are fairly sanguine about foxes but we have a large local urban fox population and I've seen a gang of young foxes on the hunt in the street down below. There's quite a difference between a single fox facing a mature cat and a gang of hungry young foxes with a kitten. The latter might make a quick mouthful or two - they're so small.

House cat? Not all cats want to be out. If you get an adult who dislikes the outdoors it's fine to keep them in.

Where we used to live there was an abundance of urban foxes, very sadly we lost our adult cat, Lady, to a fox, she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. She was also very 'street wise' and despite her looks (pure white BSH) was a bit of a bruiser. We had seen foxes every so often, but we had no idea they were digging a den next door but one. We actually had kittens at the time we lost Lady, and simply wouldn't take the chance in letting them out.

We moved from that house, into evidently a worse position, we ended up in a house with a very established fox den at the end of the garden. They weren't shy about letting us know they were there, and they were extremely protective when there were cubs. At this point we had 9 cats and had to resort to keeping everyone in. It was only for a short period as we moved again, but it was clearly stressful for all the cats. My biggest cat, who is not afraid to stick up for himself, even at 6.5kg wouldn't go out.

For me, I wouldn't risk it.

There are foxes everywhere in London and probably in most of the UK, so all outdoor cats are in contact with foxes most of the time. Generally speaking they are no threat to adult cats, although there can be the occasional very aggressive and desperate fox who will take on a cat. As a rule though once the kittens are around six months they should be fine.

Small kittens are certainly killed by foxes though.

My foxes and cats co-exist very peacefully, and the foxes defer to the cats in everything. If I give the foxes some food, and the cats manage to get to it first, the foxes will stand back and wait for the cats to finish before trying to get to the food themselves for example.

Yes - there are foxes everywhere and they're here to stay. About all you can do in the long term is ensure local bins are always kept tight closed in which case, they'll probably go for rats if really hungry. (Rats also being omnipresent.) Kittens are about rat size I suppose.

Keeping cats (especially youngsters) in after dusk might help. Even our foxes who are pretty bold - I was out front very late one summer evening when a big dog fox trotted past on the pavement without so much as a sideways glance - are generally only out when the streets are quieter. Not quite in the early hours always but mostly round about then.