Foxes in back gardens S5

[E-Man Groovin 27]

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

[Phanerothyme 12]

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?"

[back2basics 10]

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.

[max 13]

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'.

[back2basics 10]

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.

[Phanerothyme 12]

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.

[back2basics 10]

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.

[saxon51 10]

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

 

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.

[chocki 13]

Wide awake at 0330hrs this morning, looked out of window and saw a fox in my garden. This was in Goodison Crescent, Stannington. I was quite shocked to see it. So to any neighbours of mine, watch out, there's a fox about lol

[lisaem 10]

Foxes are regular visitors on our back garden. although i'm alittle scared of them i love to see and hear them around...............keeps the rats(neighbours chuck there waste food up the top of their garden) in check lol

[maryjane 11]

"darling I'm off to the forum"

"wear the fox hat?"

 

not heard that for years!! still made me laugh

[maryjane 11]

we have a few up here in S8, had one of my hens last year but so far has not been back for the rest in spite of passing through the garden every night!