Shop Foxes

[sapwood]

Occasionally I glimpse a gray fox in the yard. Apparently there were two and now there are four

So I snapped a couple of photos this evening of my shop fox pups.



Yep, they are living under my shop


And a fox on a box



Wish they were big enough to catch beavers!

Roger

[newtowood]

Cool, they will keep the varmits away hopefully!

[toolferone]

Wow, you live really close to mother nature. Are there any dangers with having them around?

[JackLeg]

Think "rabies." Cute, but------. Had em in my barn couple years ago.

22 short doesn't make much noise.

[nelsone]

Great pics!

[Gofor]

Mine live back in the woods but visit every evening. Yes, they keep the varmints down, and the best thing I have found for mole control. As for rabies, foxes are no more danger than the 'possums, racoons, and other night critters that are there every night but you just don't see them as often. The stray cats, wild dogs, and squirrels are more of a threat IMHO.

Go

[Gotcha6]

As long as they are coming around at dusk & at night, and they are still afraid of you, it shouldn't be a problem. Had one come up in the middle of the afternoon acting all strange. Coulda been distemper & I didn't take any chances. LOML was running a small home day care at the time.

[jeff...]

wow that is so cool Roger your one lucky dog

[5Etek-mike]

That is SO COOL, Roger! That looks like a very nice shop.
Maybe they can be trained to sweep up with their tails..

[ebarr]

Roger,

You should start charging admission. You have quite the zoo going with the Beavers too. That is pretty cool.

I'm not sure you have much to worry about. A friend of mine had several foxes in their yard for awhile. He wife was feeding them. They just kinda disappeared after they got a little older.

I might be more concerned if my kids were in your yard playing. I will assume you don't have any kids under 12 at your house on a daily basis.

[Glennbear]

Deer, rabbits, beavers, spiders, foxes, are you operating an illicit game preserve or what ? You are lucky to be able to enjoy that much nature up close despite the havoc on your garden and trees

[Charles Lent]

Two years ago a red fox raised 4 pups in a driveway culvert pipe at the other end of my street. They came out to play on the street (a dead end street) under the streetlight every evening at about dusk. Mom would lie on the lawn under a bush next to the road and keep track of them. When coming home late we had to go slow to give them time to move off the road so we could get by. They seemed to know that they had to get out of the way of a car, but didn't go much further than the edge of the road to let us go by and mom stayed right there under the bush the whole time. They were frequently less than 3 feet from the car as we moved slowy by. When the pups got about 3/4 grown she moved them away. I tried to get pictures several times, but never seemed to find them when I had the camera with me.

We have seen both red and gray foxes, racoons, possums, skunks, a coyote, deer, and even a cougar on one occasion in the neighborhood at night, and we live within the city limits. There are some small wooded areas and a lake adjoining the development and we seem to see the larger animals mostly when they are going either to or from the lake and these wooded areas, usually after midnight. The smaller scavenger animals make the rounds cleaning up leftover cat and dog food that gets left out on porches. A possum and a racoon frequent my porch almost every night checking to see if our cats ate all their dinner. They don't run if we turn on the light, and the possum will let us go out the door and get as close as 3 feet from him before he leaves. The racoon leaves whenever we open the door.

I enjoy living near wildlife. We even had whip-or-wills in the woods between I-85 and our development until Lowes and Walmart built there. Now they are gone, and I miss their pleasant calls on quiet nights.

Charley

[sapwood]

Enjoyed the comments, folks. I'm curious to see what happens as we have an abundance of squirrels, rabbits, geese, mallards, moles, and other critters. One has to assume the fox pups will seek new territory as they mature. Meanwhile, it's fun to sit on the deck in the evening and watch them frolic.

Roger

[Alan in Little Washington]

Just watch out for the Grizzly that made them!

[Steve W]

I need one of those to get rid of the excess squirrelage in my yard!

Steve