Very skinny fox – don’t know what to do

[Hedgie Lover]

I feel really mean not offering any food, but have a need to protect my precious hogs.

Any advice greatly welcomed. Feel very sorry for it, and it’s playing with my conscience

[Hedgie Lover]

I’ve decided that I’m not going to do anything and just live with the guilt – the fox has disappeared anyway, so it’s too late to do anything.

I’m not totally sure if it was actually skinny, as I just saw it’s back legs and it managed to squeeze through a 5inch gap in the fence (could be 6inch)

As I’m so used to dogs, it appeared to me to be skinny, but as I don’t know to much about foxes, I’m not sure.

However, If I do see one again, and it does look in bad state, I will offer up a big bowl of wet dog meat, as I cannot live with my conscience.

I feel so sorry for it.

[Hedgie Lover]

I saw the skinny fox again last night, and felt terrible, because I failed to put a bowl out for him, as I didn’t have enough dog meat, only enough to make sure my hogs can eat.

He even looked at me, I felt so guilty

But then again, no food got eaten last night (for the 1st time), and no sign of the hogs and I thought, wonder if he’s eating all my hogs.

I wonder (and the foster carer does this), whether I should start to leave a big bowl out – as it appears, the fox is coming in my garden each night anyway, so would I create any further risk?

[Nic]

Hi Hedgie Lover

It really needs to be your personal choice. Obviously it will encourage the fox, but if it is coming into your garden anyway …. If you are going to offer it food, I would do it away from where the hogs feed, if I were you.

[Hedgie Lover]

It’s been a year now – and it’s almost nightly – so what I did yesterday morning – as I didn’t have any hogs visiting me on Saturday (which was the 1st time for a long time), I decided to give their left over food, well I tipped it out where the fox has been entering into my garden – and it had gone. Whether a hedgehog ate it all, I don’t know, I assume it was the fox.

So from now on that’s what I’ll do, just tip out the left over food, I do that now and again anyway, so I’ll keep on doing that – so then nothing gets wasted.

The things is, I can understand why the foster carer does it – because the hogs are in hutches outside, and obviously, she needs to avoid the fox pestering the hogs, so she leaves a bowl out away from the hutches each night – so if that fox comes regularly anyway, and it tries each night to get to the hutches – that would be worse.

She does have wild hogs visit too.

So,yes, on the one hand it does encourage foxes to come every night, but after one year, and it’s still looking for food, I might as well give in to it. Plus if it’s full, it might not eat a hog out of desperation. I thought if it’s fighting to survive, it might try harder.

I did take on board your advice last year, and decided not to encourage the fox by not feeding, but it hasn’t worked on this occasion, so I think this is the best decision for me.

[Author]

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