deterring foxes

In message , "[news]" wrote

Maybe an old wives (farmers) tale, but recently on television it was suggested that marking the territory with human urine may deter foxes from the marked location.

Renardine does work and I like the smell but not everyone does. It has to be replenished frequently and I don't think that the memory of it will work for future generations. It would be expensive to put round the whole boundary.

Some recommend a man made liquid round your boundary. That didn't work for us.

Some recommend PET bottles full of water left lying around. We didn't even try that.

Some recommend human hair round the boundary. I don't think that would work because it would soon lose whatever human odour it had and would blow away or be pulled under by worms or be covered over with all sorts of things. Including fox eggs perhaps.

The only thing which worked for us was a 6' high chain link fence all round the garden - making sure that the conjunctions with neighbours' fences were blocked in some way. They (fox) can jump and they can walk on very narrow fence tops. Barbed wired isn't 100% effective, 2' vertical steel poles, about 3" apart at the fence corner were.

They can also dig under fences so either the fence needs to be 2' deep or there must be an impenetrable barrier on the ground at either side of the fence. We already had concrete at our neighbours' sides.

A determined fox is VERY difficult to deter.

If you don't like the fence idea a large dog is probably your only answer but it must be kept in the garden and be visible.

The fence has worked for us. We have had no chickens killed since we erected ours - at great expense of money and time and effort.

Mary

thanks for the replies.

fencing is impractical, as is a dog. man water + renardine + scoot it is then.

I don't want to scare it off from the area, I'd just rather it layed it's darned eggs in any other garden but ours. quite interested to see if it's a female and if so, if there's any cubs about.

RT

Piss in their holes and all along the paths they make regularly until they give up. Not an overnight solution as the smell has to build up but it does work.

Alternatively a sign pointing to Prescott's house ?

Can I just ask - how do you distinguish fox eggs from dog, or cat? I just ask, cos we get regular deposits and assumed it was a cat, but we do get urban foxes (in Edinburgh).

no dogs in the area, far too big for a cat, laid along a track leading to two fox nests within twenty feet of each other, fox spotted on CCTV travelling along the path. odds on, they are fox eggs.

RT

Not first hand, but I'm told that stuff called Renardine is the foxes' bollocks as a repellent: you get it from argricultural suppliers etc

David

They are drier than dog's ones and smell more.

But if you've had badgers then you'll think a fox a great improvement - their 'slurry' smells the whole garden out.

You definitely don't want that. Last year the vixen deposited her cubs in my garden at night while she went off foraging. The noise they made was unbelievable.

In message , Mike writes

Badgers dig up wasps' nests and eat them. I don't know of anything useful that foxes do.

Foxes eat a varied diet, you often find beetles' wing cases, cherry stones and the like in rural fox droppings. Urban foxes, you'd find small debris from takeaway food, like those little ketchup sachets. It must be the junk food that makes urban droppings small so bad.

You should feed them - either with something or to something :-)

In message , "Dave Plowman (News)" wrote

But they are cute :)

What about 150 posh people on horses with 40 barking, hungry Beagles in tow? That might do the tick (but don't let the Old Bill know about it.....)

Fox eggs are a different colour, odour, size and shape from any dog or cat egg I've ever seen or smelled

Mary

The noise of a vixen on heat is bloodcurdling.

Mary

He might deserve it but i think they'd go in any other direction possible if they could read.

They don't have to be posh or on horseback. The majority of fox hunters aren't either.

Mary

In message , jd wrote

How would replacing a few piles of fox s**t with 340 piles of horse, human and beagle s**t help?

I'm sure a hunt would do a lot more damage to the garden than a few foxes.

If zero tolerance policing is okay for people living in towns why isn't it applicable to criminals living in the countryside. One law for rich Tories voters and another for the rest of us!

What's useful about that?

Mary