Animal Profiles - The Red Fox
Vulpres Vulpres
The Red Fox is mostly seen trotting across fields going about its business. They are great scavengers and generally live on a diet of voles, rabbits and other small creatures. They will take a dead lamb carcase and clean up afterbirth if sheep have lambed outdoors. Sometimes they may take a weak live lamb but mostly will leave them well alone rather than face a very defensive and angry ewe. They are opportunists and do enjoy chicken as many poultry keepers will testify. They like the chase and will kill every chicken in the coop, often trying to bury carcases so that they can return later when times are hard. If the chickens are locked up safely early enough then they pass by without a glance.
The rural fox is a beautiful, happy go lucky individual and is usually no bother to man, preferring to avoid confrontation with humans. The urban fox has become a very different type of animal, used to people and the waste they leave so generously lying around. They are great at breaking into dustbins and spreading the contents of bin bags everywhere. They are quite happy to make good use of urban gardens, sometimes even living and raising a family in a favourite place. Some well-meaning people catch them and return them to the wild, but they do the urban fox no favours. Many farmers have met this slightly larger fox, unafraid and sometimes openly aggressive, but unable to hunt for itself when faced with ready meals not available. After days of hunger they are often then shot out of kindness.
Foxes can live as long as a domestic dog in captivity, but in the wild most will only survive for a few years, some only for just one year. They weigh about 5kgs, the dog fox slightly larger than the female, the vixen. They are slender in appearance with pointed black-backed ears and an elongated muzzle. The fox has a topcoat of reddish colour with grey on its throat and belly. Their bushy red tail makes up one third of the length of the animal.
They are solitary when hunting and this is how we mostly see them. They do pair up often for life, meeting occasionally for mating, grooming or play. They are territorial animals but if neighbours paths cross they rarely fight preferring to avoid confrontation. During the mating season the dog fox will however fight any fox coming into their territory sometimes to the death. They communicate with sound as well as facial expressions and body posture, even wagging their tails when greeting family members. They have a wide range of calls from small cub calls, warning calls and barks and screams, the latter more commonly heard at night, to locate another fox or mate. They have an acute sense of smell and can hear a mouse moving several metres away. They pounce on their prey very like the domestic cat does when playing, and are very successful once they have located the slightest noise or movement.
After mating and a gestation period of seven or eight weeks the female gives birth usually to 4 or 5 cubs each weighing just a few ounces. The cubs are blind and deaf and their fur is short and black. The dog fox will bring food to the den for the female for the first few weeks so that she can stay with the cubs, then he takes no further responsibility for them. The vixen will start hunting for herself and the cubs after this period. At about four weeks old they are able to start eating meat, and also moult and start to grow their traditional red coat. The cubs will also start venturing outside to play. Once they are strong enough the den is often abandoned having served its purpose. By mid-summer they are receiving less food and start to learn to forage for themselves. By the end of summer they have spread over a large area of their territory and as autumn arrives fights often break out causing them to gradually disperse to seek out new areas to live.
By the age of ten months they are able to breed and raise their own family.
