Anyone have/had a fox problem? I live in a town where there is quite a large area of gardens and the foxes are driving me nuts.

Any suggestions welcome.

From another forum, a members reply to similar question

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I've got rid of quite a lot of town foxes. Best way is to set a cage trap over soft ground because then you don't have to waste time waiting for it to turn up. When you catch them shoot them in the head with a .22 subsonic - job done. If they won't go in the trap, which most town foxes seem ok with but there's always one, then use bait. Find a spot that offers a safe shot from an upstairs window ideally and feed it every night for a week and then go and shoot it from the window.

A good way to tell the time the bait is taken is to peg down a cheap clock and tie the bait to the battery. When the fox takes the bait it pulls the battery out, telling you the time it was pulled. Record the time every day when renewing the bait and reset the clock - chances are it will get into some kind of routine and the bait will be taken at a similar time each day as the fox does his round. Get there half an hour early and bingo - you shouldn't have to wait long.

Thanks, then what did he do with the fox? Put it in the plastic wheely bin?

A further reply was

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Depending where you are really. If your near public footpaths etc I would bury/burn them. If you are getting rid of foxes in a suburban area you would have to take them away and bury/burn them elsewhere if you can. I normally leave mine in the bottom of a thick hedge or throw them into thick cover as I don't have any footpaths nearby and they don't take long to decompose or get eaten by other wildlife, the flies love them and in return cover the carcasses in maggots which other birds can enjoy.

Or a local Takeaway  Former Mod/Member, with the most post & Chicken George Arch nemesis

Someone in our local kebab shop, only last night said " what the fox this" apparently wasn't happy with his meal.

We don't get them round here at all, suppose we are lucky in that respect, sounds like a can of worms too.

I don't see many here either, I guess they are more interested in the farmer surrounding my town

Though I do see a few at the road side having a long sleep with the occasional badger Former Mod/Member, with the most post & Chicken George Arch nemesis

I can understand a farmer taking lethal action if his livestock are terrorised by foxes but to kill them just for hanging around on gardens, messing and raiding bins is cruel and cowardly. We back onto fields and get them regularly. If they mess, we clear it up. They don't tend to do much on our garden probably due to the scent of our 2 dogs Sam and Toby/The Hulk  LL.B (Hons) - University of Derby
LOT (Lord of Time) - University of Gallifrey

Since there is no natural predator to a urban fox, no stray dogs or anything that might have kept the numbers down, then the abundant food available in towns and cities, the urban fox has gone up in numbers, unlike countryside foxes who shy away from man, urban foxes are said not too, they are growing in size, not so long ago a 4 foot dog fix was culled, weight 2 stone too, now, think if that fix had been clipped by say a car/van and was injured, it would take easy prey, cats small pet dogs, a young child playing in a garden, of course, was the case of Isabella and Lola ­Koupparis, the nine-month-old twins savaged by a fox that crept into their North-East London house through an open back door and then slunk its way upstairs to the girls’ bedroom where it attacked, ­injuring one child on the arm and the other on her face. The wound on poor Isabella’s arm was described by her reconstructive surgeon as the worst animal bite he had ever seen.

I am just giving that reply as an example for one side of those that think it's advantageous to keep urban fox numbers down Former Mod/Member, with the most post & Chicken George Arch nemesis

I think the parents should have exercised more caution than they did there. If foxes are such a problem then don't leave a door open when a child is unattended. What if a stray pitbull or some other similar dog got in? What if a perv got in?

Burglars often steal car keys and then the car because of unsecured doors. I do agree though that where they do become aggressive (foxes that is not burglars ) and cause real problems then lethal action should be considered (maybe extend that to burglars too ). I just think that if they are just being a general pain like tipping bins over or messing on the garden, killing them is harsh.

I tell you something, if we ever got a big nasty fox on our garden along the lines of the big one you mentioned, I would just let Toby out to give a warning bark and if it tried to stand its ground, then Toby would be sent to see him off. He wouldn't kill the fox but the fox would not be coming back for more. LL.B (Hons) - University of Derby
LOT (Lord of Time) - University of Gallifrey

And I know 2 people near me who actually buy food and feed them......

They then crap all over my garden and try and dig it up.

^ Encouraging them is a bad idea full stop. Regardless of the intentions of the fox. LL.B (Hons) - University of Derby
LOT (Lord of Time) - University of Gallifrey

Agree about secure doors, not just for foxes

As for feeding them, ridiculous thing to do as only encourages them,

Digging up flower beds can be due to using fertiliser which has bone meal in it

If you have tree hugger neighbours I doubt they will listen to you if you were too explain your issues, so better hide the trap too and keep quite about dispatching it  Former Mod/Member, with the most post & Chicken George Arch nemesis

Not everyone has or wants a dog.

Hate them. They have attacked both our cats. One nearly died through shock - luckily I caught the bastid ragging it in our garden and chased it away. The other just escaped and ran up our apple tree. On both occasions you could have stuffed a pillow with the fur that came out of the cats in our garden. Past: FL2 TD4 HSE Auto
Evoque SD4 Dynamic Lux Auto
Present: Audi A3 S Line.

A few weeks ago, we awoke to fing a fox lying dead on our driveway - not a mark on it. We rang the council who said that as it was on private land, they'd charge to remove it but if we dragged it onto the pavement.......  From a time when dinosaurs weren't just confined to zoos!