What Does the Fox Say?

One enjoyable attribute of living on a farm is that you get to see a lot of wildlife up close.  About a month ago we discovered there was a family of foxes living underneath / inside of a stack of irrigation pipe in the barnyard.  At times we would see an adult fox and a couple of pups run for cover as soon as they were spotted.  Then, as the pups got a little bigger the vixen would leave them to go out into the fields to find food.  While she was gone the pups would come out of the pipe and run around and play (the cutest thing on earth).  They would still run for cover as soon as they saw a human approaching, but if we were on a tractor or 4-wheeler we could get a lot closer than if we were on foot.  A couple weeks after we started seeing these foxes, we discovered how many there actually were.  At first, the most pups anyone had seen was 4.  Once they started getting a little more brave, we started seeing all 7 of them out at once.  That's 8 foxes living not just on the farm, but in the barnyard.

They are fun to watch.  Baby foxes behave just like puppies, chasing, wrestling, playing, and teasing each other.  Their agility is impressive.  They can climb to the top of the straw stack in about 3 seconds, run full speed and dive into an 8 inch pipe, and jump 4 to 5 feet straight up in the air from a standing position.

These foxes have managed to reduce the population of wild bunnies (who feast on our garden).  We have also seen evidence that they have eliminated a few rock-chucks.  That is where the benefit to their presence stops.  A few days ago, the vixen discovered our gopher traps out in the field.  We went out to check our traps, only to find an number of them had been pulled up and robbed of the gophers we had caught.  Even some of the traps that were not set off yet had been pulled out of the holes.  On June 13th they stole 4 gophers in one day.  Some of the traps also started to disappear altogether.  A couple of them we recovered just outside the gated pipe where they live, but 3 of our traps are still missing.  Also, we haven't seen our cat for about 2 weeks, and all of the ducklings on the irrigation pond are also missing.

On June 15th, the kids went out to check the live animal trap they set two days before to try and catch a bunny, and to their surprise the smallest of the fox pups had gotten caught instead!  Who knew they liked watermelon and carrots? The kids were as excited as when they see what Santa brings them on Christmas morning.

One boy wanted to keep the fox and train it so he can put it in the zoo he is putting together (that's why they were trying to catch a bunny.  So far their exhibits consist of a jar full of baby grasshoppers).  The other boy wanted to shoot it, because the foxes have stolen a lot of gophers, and they stole his trap that was staked into the ground.  The girls were just excited to see the baby fox up close.  It was about the size of a cat, although its long fluffy hair made it seem larger.  The kids ran up to tell the grandparents, who were dragged down to see the fox in person.  After admiring the sly creature for a while, Grandpa opened the door on the trap and released it.  The fox ran away about 50 feet, then stopped and looked back at the kids for almost a full minute.  Then it went back to its hiding place inside the irrigation pipe.  This action was not received well, because G. still wanted it for a pet, R. still wanted to shoot it, and the girls still wanted to look at it.

Foxes are cute, but we are hoping they will move away soon.  A pack of 8 grown foxes can pose a significant threat to livestock, pets, and other wildlife.    

Since we've been living in such close proximity to 8 foxes in the last month, my kids can now answer the question posed by the Ylvis song: "What Does the Fox Say?"  Foxes are actually pretty noisy.