Allotments 4 All
Produce => Wildlife forum => Topic started by: flossy on November 01, 2009, 08:03:05
-
Well, we knew they were around --- a neighbour I presume has lost her chickens,
as we found a brooding egg in our garden, beige colour made of a hard rubber, the deep
teeth marks showed obvious ' dog like ' holes, we are missing the distant ' chucking ' we
would hear of a morning. Foxes have been sighted by OH and a neighbour so I would say
it's a cert that this 'deed' I found this morning is down to them.
Our local hedgehog, still young was getting on well -- no food was left out at night for obvious
reasons, found dead on our lawn, on her side and one leg missing. Not eaten, not taken away !
I searched a site that is involved with hedgehog preservation, who outlined the type of attack a fox
will make--- they wait, behind the hedgehog until it uncurls then they pounce and catch them by
a leg.
I like Foxes --- in the countryside where they belong !!!
-
It is amazing just how many problems a fox can cause in a short time.
-
Don't know what the answer is Digeroo there was a thread about foxes on allotments
but can't find it, The weather has been wet and dismal, I can't get out there and retrieve
the poor thing.
What is the answer ? If anyone has any experience of foxes in thier garden and have a need to
discourage them, please me know,
Leaving rubbish bags out for a week or more doesn't help ! students around our area , are oblivious of
the collection routine here, not thier fault --- landlords !
Sorry to be soooo dismal , sad day,
Jeyes fluid is banned, can understand that as the fumes effect wildlife, but foxes, badgers will avoid it!
-
im afraid there isnt such a thing as a bad fox its only doing what comes natural to it its a wild animal
it will always take the easy option and somtimes this involves our livestock .
and as for the hedgehog they can be nasty also i have witnessed a hadgehog killing a hen that was sitting a broodybox and also killing several quails
unfortunatly this is nature and usually when a fox kills our livestock its not charlies fault its the fault of the person in charge of the livestock for not locking hens up at night or not haveing proper security foxes do alot of good in nature ie vermin control even eating slugs and snails
ps im not an anti hunting person far from it hunting vermin is my second passion
-
Foxes will live anywhere they can get food and it is incorrect to think that they only belong in the countryside. The highest densities of foxes have been found in Bristol, because cities and towns privide more opportunities for food, so they can have smaller territories. I quite like having foxes around, though i have not seen them as much in our town since we switched to wheelie bins.
We are getting poultry soon and the first priority is to get a good house and also a fox proof fence. When the kids had a rabbit I knew it had to be kept where it was safe from foxes. i live in a town but they are part of the natural environment of the town.
I am fighting a (losing) battle against hordes of mice this year, and occassionally rats pass through. For the first time ever the local rabbit population has exploded to such an extent that the rabbits are now found throughout the town including my garden. Anything that eats meat is an ally as far as I am concerned. Sometimes foxes can be quite blase about people. I once came across a fox at the side of a driveway and we looked at each other from a distance of about 6 feet. I felt quite privileged to be able to do that. It was used to seeing people around but was still a completely wild animal.
-
They did it again, aweek later, another young hedgehog --- not a weakling and
would have got through the winter just fine.
I understand about nature, dog eat dog etc .
A lot of the resposibility towards wildlife is ours, dessicrating the natural habitat of
wild creatures, will drive them into suburbia and the refuse and rotting food that is left
around that gives them a free meal and a good life.
Foxes not eating the creatures that they kill is an issue I think, hens left dead and headless ?
As I said before, I like foxes ----
--- in the wild where they belong.
-
Once the hunting ban came I expected that the number of foxes around would increase, but I have not heard one all summer.
-
A fox is an animal and has no moral code and no concept of right and wrong.
It is completely at the mercy of nature and its natural instincts. If it sees something it might eat, it automatically kills it, even if it is not terribly hungry. A bit like some women let loose in a clothes shop. ;D
If the woman buys something she can not use straight away she stores it in the wardrobe. If the fox cannot eat it straight away it will often come back to the dead carcase and try to bury them so that it can come back later and retrieve them.
Most dogs let lose in a pen of sheep would do the same. They would go into kill mode and kill every sheep. They are not bad or evil, nature has programmed them that way. Dogs have to be trained out of that if they are to live with livestock.
As our towns and cities get greener we have to get used to sharing it with wild animals. In summer on sunny days I usually see buzzards soaring over my town, many cities have breeding peregrine falcons, I have water voles at the bottom of my garden. Nature has always lived in towns and cities. I am hoping one day that we will see red kites in our towns and cities as they used to be common in medieval cities.
-
A fox just broke into the garage (ok not fox proof)and "despatched "the grandchildrens rabbit :'( :'( :'(He wouldn't have made another winter as his body clock was ticking.... but sad nonetheless but I can't find it in me to hate the fox. can't change it so just have to move on but wouldn't contemplate offering that as a concept to my 8year pld granddaughter :(
-
I was once walking round the allotments with my daughter, who was seven at the time. She came running after me: "Dad! There is wolf!"
So I walked back with her, and it was a fox sitting on one of the plots looking at us. I haven't seen many for the last few years, since an outbreak of mange, and there are more rats than there used to be as a result. I'm all for foxes.
-
we have foxes in the garden and up our lotty ,there are more that live in school across the road .The man over the road keeps chickens and an old neighbour buys a pack of chicken thighs every day to feed them.Wehave dogs and that doesn't stop them .We knew this would happen but are powerless to do anything about it now god bless the hunting ban :P
-
On the way to work the other day, I heard a noise and a fox shot across a garden, nuts the bloody life out of me, now we have wheelie bins they might have scratch around for their food, do they eat rats, I bloody hope so. ;D ;D ;D
-
We had a fox watching our tennis match, the bowling green at Bush Hill Park Tennis Club has put an electric fence around it, but the fox was on the adjacent tennis court, having a laugh at the standard of tennis at night. I often see them if I am walking home at night.
-
do they eat rats, I bloody hope so. ;D ;D ;D
No, but I know a couple of guys called Gino & Stuart who might be interested ... ;D
Sorry, back on topic!
-
We have at least 2 families of foxes living in the garden and adjoining wood but the sheep in the field have not been touched .We have plenty of rabbits as the foxes only take the sick and poorly ones.
-
I doubt that we have any hedgehogs left round here now,
-- found the 4th one yesterday, :-\
-
I know through experience on this site that some people are not going to like what I'm going to say,
but who cares,
if a fox came into my allotment causing damage,or killing the chickens ,
id shoot it simple.
nothing against all foxes,just the rouges. :-X
-
I know through experience on this site that some people are not going to like what I'm going to say,
but who cares,
if a fox came into my allotment causing damage,or killing the chickens ,
id shoot it simple.
nothing against all foxes,just the rouges. :-X
Don't you think it might upset your fellow allotmenteers if you took your gun to the allotments, let alone started shooting the wildlife? It hardly seems like a reasonable thing to do. Don't you need the land-owner's permission to shoot? I'm sure some kind of fencing would be a better way of dealing with a fox nuisance, because any fox will kill chickens, not just a 'rogue'.
-
Oh dear, please don't think that I have any angst against foxes, even though they reduced
me to tears when I had my lottie [ which I miss very much ], I do feel though that we have
created an environment that encourages foxes to live amongst us, -- they are born to a way
of life that is unnatural for them, yes, they can be cute to have around and many people feed them
for the joy of seeing them in their garden -- OK but they do carry desease, mange amongst them,
so watch out for your cats and dogs health.
17yrs in rural England, has given me the joy of seeing foxes in their natural habitat -- wonderful
-- and a privilege. I hate to see these creatures scouring our dustbins, chicken pens and whatever
else they can scavinge to stay alive, and that includes our urban/garden wildlife.
I wish no creature any harm -- far from it, but I believe it won't be long before the powers that
be will call for a ' cull ', --- you know '' elf and safety '',
-
I experienced people shooting (illegally) behind where we lived in Cornwall. It led to shot hitting the house while they blasted way. No way would I want to see people shooting on the allotments!
-
Foxes are territorial , that is why you notice the stink when they mark their territory. If you shoot one fox then you are likely to get several others fighting over the territory. To say that foxes are living in an unnatural environment is rubbish. The countryside is mainly not natural - most has been cleared for farmland and probably provides more food for foxes than the original primeval forest, cause they are very adaptable specie. Towns and cities provide more food than the countryside, that is why they support more foxes/acre than the surrounding countryside.
As for spreading disease to pets, also rubbish. None of the pet cats and dogs be have owned have ever caught anything and we have had foxes always around, they are as normal to have around as blackbirds and sparrows.
We live in a small town. When we got a rabbit I knew I had to get a hutch and run that was predator proof. We are getting chickens in the New year. I have paid for a well built secure chicken shed and they will have access to a moveable electric fence that is designed to be fox proof. If I had them on an allottment then I would use a battery instead of mains power.
If you use a gun on an allottment not only are you likely to be thrown off but you would lose your gun license and be fined.
I wish I had a fox living in my garden - it would help keep the bleeding mice down.
-
I'm sure I've had more problems with rats since the foxes had mange. I'm not so sure about the countryside providing more food; industrial agriculture doesn't seem to favour very much in the way of wildlife!
-
I suppose it depends on the countryside. Round here we have cow pasture and that supports a lot of worms and worms are a very important part of their diet. I should imagine they take maize cobs as well cause everything else seems to be pulling them out of the fields. Also rats and mice round anywhere there is animal feed stored.
-
I disagree that pets don't get diseases from foxes as when our dog was alive she used to go fishing with OH and roll in certain places and managed to pick up mange which was easily treated. we often see foxes around our estate and I put out any food the cat leaves to whatever wants it . we have seen hedgehogs and a fox in our small garden as there is a small pond which they drink from as well but never seen a dead hedgehog
marg
-
Didn't the dog stink? Mine has done that and she ended up in the bath as soon as we got home.
-
Didn't the dog stink? Mine has done that and she ended up in the bath as soon as we got home.
you would have thought so! blessed if I can remember shes been gone nearly 10years and was old and smelly anyway very much like OH was when he came home from fishing ;)
marg