Any body out there in S5 getting regular visits from foxes?
I am and there is usually 3 at a time. Same 3 I think every night.
Don't know sexes but one looks senior to other 2 and has a limp in front left leg.
They interact with our cats and get along fine.
Any other sightings of these 3 please.:thumbsup: :?

Originally posted by markham
Any body out there in S5 getting regular visits from foxes?
I am and there is usually 3 at a time. Same 3 I think every night.
Don't know sexes but one looks senior to other 2 and has a limp in front left leg.
They interact with our cats and get along fine.
Any other sightings of these 3 please.:thumbsup: :? I see them most nights i live on S5 but i never tell people i have seen them (foxes) due to someone might come and hurt them :mad:

I saw two foxes a few weeks ago running around someones front garden on raisen hall road.

I see at least 1 fox every week in and around Sheffield. There is lots about. I've seen 2 together but never 3.

Foxes are absolute suckers for jam.
If you want to see more of your nocturnal friends try putting out some bread and jam at night.
It is noted in the bible that in the Song of Solloman(SP) they were having problems in the vineyards with foxes sucking down all the grapes.
Anyway,I kid you not.Bread and jam is the answer.
I would be a little concerned with your cats.One level down on the food chain in a fox's opinion I would think.Remember they are small and cute,but still wild animals.

where bout is s5? i'm in s2 and we dont see n e here

I'm in S11 and often see foxes running through gardens. I also sometimes see them trotting across the road without a care in the world, once even in daylight!

When i used to live on the arbourthorne,used to see them all the time,but if i had my way i'd shoot them all,there vermin,simple as,get rid of the lot of them.

Originally posted by mr craig
When i used to live on the arbourthorne,used to see them all the time,but if i had my way i'd shoot them all,there vermin,simple as,get rid of the lot of them.

Foxes will always find a home. They're being pushed out of the countryside by nasty hunters so instead are becoming more common in cities making homes in wooded areas and hedges with lots of bins around for food supplies. Foxes have just as much right to inhabit this planet as humans and should not all simply be shot. At the risk of sounding like a tree hugger, humans have done more damage to the earth than foxes ever will. I hate people who treat animals like ****, they're all living beings.

Nice one, I'm inclined to agree with you t020. I hate fox hunters, there's just no excuse for such cruelty.

I agree it hunting should be banned.

A fox came into our garden in the middle of the day and chased our pet rabbits around ,catching one of them but dropping it (although badly injured it survived after a trip to the vets) I still dont agree with hunting foxes .If a farmer wants to control them on his own land fair enough but the people who make a whole ritual out of it i.e. wearing silly outfits and chasing them with dogs and horses well the best word for them is ******* or ***** fill in the spaces for the most appropriate word.

Bill

Originally posted by mr craig
When i used to live on the arbourthorne,used to see them all the time,but if i had my way i'd shoot them all,there vermin,simple as,get rid of the lot of them.
You sound so angry.
What made you so?
In best Basil Brush voice Boom Boom

Originally posted by mopfloyd
You sound so angry.
What made you so?
In best Basil Brush voice Boom Boom

Ok,my last post was pretty harsh,i'd been on the pop all night and was a little worse for wear.:loopy:
The reason i've got something against them is they dug up where our our pet dog had beem buried,which upset my mother a lot,and no-one like seeing that.
I can understand why they move in to urban areas,and i'm sure a lot of people dont mind them.But after what happened i'm pretty much against them,but i really can't think of a way to stop them coming in to urban areas.

Originally posted by t020
Foxes will always find a home. They're being pushed out of the countryside by nasty hunters so instead are becoming more common in cities making homes in wooded areas and hedges with lots of bins around for food supplies.
Not the case. Foxes have moved into urban areas because they are highly intelligent and adaptable, and the citites are providing richer and richer pickings in terms of scavenging food.

Up to 60% of the rural fox population is killed each year, yet the overall trend is still for a stable if not increasing population.

80% of town and city dwellers are happy with the idea of foxes roaming their gardens, but in rural areas, where raising livestock (particularly birds) is a business, one fox can be a real financial disaster

Foxes have just as much right to inhabit this planet as humans and should not all simply be shot. At the risk of sounding like a tree hugger, humans have done more damage to the earth than foxes ever will. I hate people who treat animals like ****, they're all living beings.
Quite true, but I accept the need to manage fox populations rurally, because otherwise in our heavily synthetic landscape, devoid of 'natural order', fox populations could easily swell to problematic proportions.

Also I try to remember that humans are as much a part of nature as anything else, and we behave within perfectly normal enevlopes of 'animal' behaviour characteristics

Hunting with dogs, particularly Pink Coats on Horseback for some reason, does seem like a particularly anachronistic and blood focussed ritual form of pest control. Good hunters armed with accurate rifles would make a much better job, if that job has to be done.

I agree that in rural areas around farms, foxes can cause problems and the population should to some degree be managed. But I don't see why it is necessary to chase a fox around for hours with packs of dogs that will eventually savage the animal to death, when a quick and accurate shot of a rifle would do the same job but not put the fox through hours of suffering. Perhaps some pro-hunters could explain this to me?

We've had a fox come regularly for the last few weeks - lovely creature, great eyes, I've been leaving food for it...

There's also one living around the park at Longley, I often see him as I drive home late in the evening...

I don't think they are the same animal

I've been told there are foxes in Wincobank woods. You have to be up early to see them (about 2 am).

I haven't seen any foxes in Firth Park, but I've seen plenty of squirrels (all part of the food chain I suppose ;) )

We have a fox living in the next garden to us, Longley has a good setup for urban foxes, plenty of houses/ bins and plenty of trees/hedgerows and the park at the bottom of the hill helps

i seen some a few months back on southey green road (top longley park end) but no seen em in months. Saw one to on moon shine near southey libary, but again a while ago, i guess they moved to your garden. I seen a sql too in my garden.

No, but I did see a badger in my neighbour's garden not so long ago.

Originally posted by t020
Foxes have just as much right to inhabit this planet as humans and should not all simply be shot. At the risk of sounding like a tree hugger, humans have done more damage to the earth than foxes ever will. I hate people who treat animals like ****, they're all living beings.

My apologies t020, but given your highly xenophobic comments in the past, I thought you would've sided with the elite fox-hunting aristocrats you appear to emulate

Originally posted by Abby
My apologies t020, but given your highly xenophobic comments in the past, I thought you would've sided with the elite fox-hunting aristocrats you appear to emulate

You thought wrong.

We have foxes in our garden on a regular basis. We back onto the privately owned side of Hartley Brook (which means the yobs who love to trash the rest of the Brook with motorbikes and the like can't get) and it's all overgrown - perfect for wildlife. I've been sat on our back doorstep with the foxes about 40 feet away on the lawn.

By the end of winter, there's a worn track across the garden where they walk. It's nice to have them around and the kids love it.

Hmm... I saw some foxy chicks at The Forum last night...

Originally posted by E-Man Groovin
Hmm... I saw some foxy chicks at The Forum last night...
"darling I'm off to the forum"
"wear the fox hat?"

I have to disagree on the issue of controlling foxes in the wild. Foxes don't eat cows or sheep, they don't destroy crops. They may kill chickens and possibly a lamb. Chickens on farms are for the most part batter chickens. Locked up, the solution is to make a shed that foxes cannot get in to. Lambs are usually reared in barns until they are old enough and strong enough to fend for themselves.

If there are too many foxes for their food supply then numbers will be reduced by nature. Nature balances it's self very well, much better than humans can do. Foxes eat rats, voles or moles are all things farmers also get rid of. Seems a bit odd to knock out their major predator doesn't it? Especially when the fox is MUCH easier to protect your land from than rats, rabbits and voles.

Also if you look at the figure here (http://www.nfws.org.uk/pro/pests.htm#pests) you will see only 5% of lambs die from 'misadventure and predation'. Where as 30% die of Starvation or exposure. It is estimated that only 0.5% of deaths are caused by foxes, the figures also show 70% of farmers have never lost a lamb to a fox. Surely the farmers time is best spent letting the foxes control the pests, spend more time on the majority of exposure deaths and a little more money protecting their barns (it's not that hard or expensive).

I started looking in to this because the farmers were all saying 'you townies just don't undersatand' and never offer figures or proof. So that started alarm bells ringing.

Obviously i TOTALLY disgree with hunting for fun, but i think the pest case is also not cut and dry.

Well said b2b. I used to be ambivalent about hunting, my sister used to ride to hound, thinking that it was actually used for the control of pests. However, that argument lost all credibility for me when I discovered that the different hunts regularly catch fox cubs and sell them to hunts in other areas where foxes are in short supply. Hunts have also been known to create artificial sets for the foxes to live in and also supply carcasses which they dump near the sets. This latter in an attempt to persuade the foxes to remain in the location so they can be more easily found by the hounds.

I liked the story Jeremy Hardy told of the man who was mugged in London when he came on the Countryside Alliance march. When he complained to the police they said 'You country folk, you just don't understand our city ways, sir'.

I would be interested in hearing a farmers view. You only ever seem to hear from a few farmers and the hunting brigade. I cross checked some of the figures in the article i posted (the sources are at the bottom of the page). Indeed most of them come from the department or agriculture, so it seem that most farmers don't believe they are a problem with foxes at all.

Originally posted by back2basics
If there are too many foxes for their food supply then numbers will be reduced by nature. Nature balances it's self very well, much better than humans can do.

Yes, but the entire British Landcsape is almost fully managed. All natural balances that exist in this country exist as a direct result of human intervention, otherwise we'd all be living in forests. So we have the job of managing the land whether we like it or not.

Also there is a big lag between population and food supply. Plentiful food supply, lots of foxes. Food supply dries up, foxes carry on breeding and suddenly you have a big glut of foxes with nothing to eat. Only then, through starvation and migration, do you get a reduction in the number of foxes.


Also if you look at the figure here <snip> you will see only 5% of lambs die from 'misadventure and predation'. Where as 30% die of Starvation or exposure. It is estimated that only 0.5% of deaths are caused by foxes, the figures also show 70% of farmers have never lost a lamb to a fox. ...

Foxes don't eat lambs - too big generally, but you get one fox in a poultry shed and Blammo! - lots and lots of blood and feathers.

Good friends were raising 20 geese for the Christmas market. One cunning fox, and they were left 16 dead geese and 3 shell shocked geese that eventually died, presumably of PTSD after seeing their feathered fraternity fall to the fox. The Fox made off with one goose. (well big gosling actually)

And in a chicken shed, that is your entire laying flock out the window overnight.

Also pheasant, grouse, and other game birds are predated by foxes.

These birds, especially, are of economic importance to rural economies because drunk rich people like to blast away at them with shotguns for unfeasibly large amounts of money. These birds are reared and stocked at great expense, hence the ire at foxes for eating all the landowners money.

But I'm not defending Hunting with hounds here. Only that population control of large predators is and always has been an integral part of land management and rearing livestock. Doing it with the minimum of suffering is the way of the responsible landowner.

And on your point about small mammals, these are actually mostly predated by domestic cats that are otherwise emplyed as ratters and mousers in rural settlements.

But foxes aren't stupid. They will work out that 80% of the urban population like foxes and would like to see more of them, and they will become completely urbanised.

Lambs do get killed by foxes, the government figures are on that link.

Sure that makes sense. It would take a while for fox numbers to stabilise. Fixes like most animals breed less when there is not enough food, so it would stabilise after a while. At some stage we would have a natural cull of foxes, but at least nature is doing the balancing act. It's very precise at what it does.

As for the small poultry farms, if they have a problem then fix it by stopping foxes getting in. In this day and age that is pretty easy. But farmers generally choose to keep animals in barns with holes in. Foxes are opportunist, i would say if their is a hole in a barn that is the farmers job to fix... not for him to think 'dam i better go shoot all the fixes before they try to get in', wrong way round. And as i said the BIG benefit is less rabbits, vole and rats.

Originally posted by Jon
I see them most nights i live on S5 but i never tell people i have seen them (foxes) due to someone might come and hurt them :mad:

Know what you mean Jon.
There's bound to be some clown out there who considers them vermin. Probably be the same clown who's dog keeps c**pping on my front garden, or the clown whose dog keeps wandering into my back garden and having a go at gardening in my flower beds.
Hey, I wonder how many of these 'Foxes are Vermin' brigade have out of control dogs wandering the streets.