Foxes are a persistent problem in Beckenham, tearing up gardens, fouling on driveways, and rummaging through bins. With Bromley Council offering no help, it’s up to BR3 residents to take action. Learn why foxes thrive here and discover effective, humane ways to reclaim your outdoor space from unwanted visitors.
Foxes are a common sight in Croydon, but their presence in gardens can become a real nuisance. With Croydon Council offering no help, residents must take action themselves. Learn why CR0 is a fox hotspot and discover practical, humane ways to deter foxes and reclaim your garden from unwanted visitors.
Foxes are a constant nuisance in Wimbledon, digging up gardens, tearing into bins, and leaving a mess behind. With Merton Council offering no help, SW19 residents must take action themselves. Discover why foxes thrive here and learn practical, humane ways to keep them out of your garden for good.
Wer den Fuchs aus seinem Garten fernhält, vermeidet Verunreinigungen, Wühlschäden und andere Ärgernisse. Wir stellen Ihnen wirksame und tiergerechte Produkte vor, die Sie sofort einsetzen können.
If you’re interested in learning more about foxes, then you should find this list of the top 8 factual books about foxes very interesting. All are easy to read and you’ll find out some amazing facts about these animals that live in such close proximitey to us.
J. David Henry spent over a decade studying rural foxes in Saskatchewan, Canada and wrote an enthusiastic book, Red Fox: The Catlike Canine, all about his incredibly in depth field experiments.
Though he can’t help but sneak in a few references to his studies, How To Spot A Fox is a much more straightforward manual for how to find foxes in rural areas. If you’re looking for a guide to finding foxes in urban areas, you need to look elsewhere.
In many cases, this book is also North American specific with frequent references to fox behaviour in relation to coyotes, wolves and bob cats, animals that we don’t have in the UK.
That being said, Dr Henry does offer some useful information that is helpful in finding and identifying foxes in any habitat, including things like:
Just like J David Henry’s other work, How To Spot A Fox contains excellent and thoroughly-studied information regarding the world of red foxes.
His knowledge of all aspects of fox life like how they find and build dens, how they interact with other foxes, what they heat and how they cache food is absolutely fascinating. It’s the kind of information that only someone who has dedicated a large proportion of their life to foxes could provide.
Even if you don’t live in rural Canada, How To Spot A Fox is a great read, packed full of facts and you’ll be far more knowledgeable about foxes by the end than you were at the start!
There are times when someone’s passion for a particular topic can actually be more interesting than the thing they are talking about. This is definitely the case when reading Dr J David Henry’s book, Red Fox: The Catlike Canine.
From the early 1970s to the mid 1980s, boreal ecologist Dr Henry spent 14 years researching rural red foxes in Prince Albert National Park, Saskatchewan, Canada. This book recounts his incredibly in-depth experiments, which could be a bit of a tough read if they were relayed purely in scientific language.
Fortunately for the reader however, Henry injects some much-needed humility, good nature and humour into proceedings, resulting in a thoroughly entertaining and action-packed 8 chapters. When you read the lengths Dr Henry went to in order to get his results (e.g. watching foxes bury food over 500 times), you’ll realise that he needed every inch of his good humour to get through some very trying times.
Originally, Dr Henry was at Prince Albert National Park to work on a black bear management project, but became so captivated by the foxes, that he decided to research them instead, forming the basis of a PhD. His passion for the foxes is clear, as evidenced in the names he gives to the foxes he observes.
‘Rose’ is described as doing something the author had never seen a fox do. Pretending to sleep while waiting outside a mouse hole, suddenly springing into life after lulling the mouse into a false sense of security.
‘My Friend’ was a male fox that Henry spent time running after in the forest. He said it actually took him about a month before he was physically fit enough to keep up. Due to the lack of human contact in the forest, the fox was perfectly happy to be followed without being alarmed.
Another nice human touch is Henry’s description of laying out red fox and coyote bones on his kitchen table trying to work out bone densities. He describes the tedious process as ‘corporal punishment’ with his (very understanding) wife laughing at him cursing in frustration!
Putting the entertaining qualities of the book to one side, J David Henry does come up with some very useful findings as a result of his painstaking research.
His observation that foxes are very ‘catlike’, despite being part of the Canid family is particularly interesting and not something I’d considered before reading his book. The retractable claws, vertical slit pupils, tapetum lacidum (shiny ‘cats eye’) and sharp canines are just some of the physical attributes shared with cats.
When hunting, foxes also exhibit very feline characteristics. Foxes like to stealthily creep up quietly on their prey, belly down just like cats. They’ll also opt for a one bite kill as cats do, rather than the shaking technique usually employed by dogs.
The cat comparison really helps to explain why foxes are such successful hunters and able to adapt to virtually any environment they find themselves in.
Overall this is a fascinating study of rural foxes, carried out by a humane and intelligent man who is unswervingly passionate about his subject.
Dr J David Henry successfully walks the line between scientific and entertaining and this book is definitely recommended for anyone who wants to learn more about foxes.
It’s also a great look behind the curtain to see the amount of hard work that goes into studying nature, as well as the immense satisfaction you get from doing it.
My advice is: go out and waste a lot of time carefully observing your animals. You may be surprised at the insights you discover. You may be surprised at the undiscovered richness of wildlife societies. Simply observing wildlife in it’s natural habitat can [help with] the understanding, interpretation, and conservation of wildlife, the animals with whom we share this planet.
Dr J. David Henry – Red Fox: The Catlike Canine
The Cleanrth TSAR550 is an ultrasonic fox deterrent that protects your garden from foxes 24/7.
Using high-pitched sounds that are beyond the range of human hearing, the fox learns to associate your garden with these irritating and uncomfortable noises.
After installation you will see less and less of the fox, until it stops entering your garden completely.
No need to spray anything. Easy to install. Completely humane. The Cleanrth TSAR550 is the USA’s most popular automated fox deterrent, offering long term fox protection for your garden.
If you’re in the USA and you’ve been experiencing problems with foxes coming into your garden, then it’s probably safe to say that you’ve had enough of the pooing, digging and destruction, and you’re looking for something to stop it.
Foxes are particularly persistent creatures that place great importance on securing their territories. The main way they do this is by ‘scent-marking’ – pooing and spraying urine in prominent places to signal to neighbouring foxes that the territory is occupied.
Foxes are notoriously reluctant to give up their territories without a fight. So when it comes to deterring them with traditional scented repellents, people usually stop putting in the effort long before the fox has been deterred.
The main reason for people’s failure to deter foxes is because foxes need to face a sustained and persistent period of deterrence in order to get them to change their habits and stay away from your garden.
Too often, people buy a scented repellent, spray it around their garden a once or twice and think that should be enough. However, once or twice is not enough. Smells quickly fade, especially after rain, and the fox will be back again having considered the scented deterrent a brief inconvenience rather than a reason to stay away for good.
Normal service will quickly resume.
The successful way to use a scented deterrent is too apply it in your garden every couple of days for at least 2 weeks. This keeps the smell strong and is long enough to cause behavioural change in the fox, teaching it to associate your garden with the horrible smell (usually citronella).
The main problem with this method is that you’ve got to remember to get out in your garden regularly to apply this stuff.
What if it’s raining? What if you’re busy at work or with family? What about during vacations?
There are a large number of reasons why you might not be able to get into your garden as often as you need in order to successfully keep the fox away.
Even if you do manage to apply a scented deterrent and temporarily get rid of the fox, what happens in 2 or 3 months when the fox tries its luck again and discovers that the horrible smell has gone? You have to go through the whole process all over again.
Surely there must be an easier way?
The Cleanrth Ultrasonic Deterrent is a much easier alternative to traditional scented fox repellents because you don’t need to do anything else after you’ve set it up.
Installation is simple. All you need to do is screw in the plastic stake into the bottom of the unit, connect the included mains adapter (or 2 x 9 volt batteries – not included) and switch it on.
When the fox enters your garden and crosses the Cleanrth’s motion sensor, the unit lets out a few sharp bursts of high-pitched noise. This noise is like a fox burglar alarm, or the fox equivalent of scratching your fingernails down a chalkboard.
Each time the fox tries to enter your garden (and it will keep trying) it triggers the alarm. This causes the fox to change its behaviour – associating your garden with the horrible noise and learning to go somewhere else.
The Cleanrth TSAR550 will continue to do this every single time, regardless of the time of day or whether you’re in or out. You don’t need to remember to be out in your garden or do anything inconvenient that you haven’t got time for. The Cleanrth sits in your yard doing the hard work for you.
To get the best results from the Cleanrth Fox Repeller, try and find the place where the fox enters your garden and set up the unit facing that area.
The entry point is important because it means the fox will trigger the ultrasonic noises the moment it tries to enter your garden. This will be more effective and lead to quicker results than if the fox was allowed further into your garden before encountering the deterrent.
The Cleanrth unit comes with a power adapter (with 38ft cable) that you can plug into your electrical supply and it’s recommended by the manufacturer that you use it.
You can use 2 x 9 Volt batteries instead, but you then face the problem of having batteries go flat. If the batteries go flat and you don’t notice, the ultrasonic unit is effectively useless and the foxes won’t be facing a deterrent.
If you don’t have a plug socket nearby, it’s a good idea to get an extension cable that is suitable for use outside. You will get much better results using the power adapter.
Priced around $70, with mounting stake and including a 9V DC 500mA power adapter, the Cleanrth TSAR550 uses a triple scan infrared sensor that can detect foxes up to 66ft away in a 120 degree arc, which is suitable for all types of garden.
Low maintenance and very effective, the Cleanrth TSAR550 Ultrasonic Repeller has quickly become one of America’s most efective ways of keeping foxes away.
If you’re reading this article, then you’ve obviously got a dog that’s known in the trade as a ‘roller’. This article explains what to use to clean your dog to get rid of the smell of fox poo, why dogs do this and how to stop them doing it again in future.
When you have foxes in your local area then a normally simple task, such as letting your dog into the garden or off the leash in the local park, can quickly turn into a smelly nightmare.
You’ve got to try and intercept them before they bring the poo into the house (or in the car) and then find a way of getting them into the bath without getting it on yourself.
All in all, it’s a horrible and time consuming job and after all that effort, there’s no guarantee that your regular dog shampoo will actually get rid of the stink.
So what can you use to wash your dog instead?
As you know, fox poo is particularly pungent and the smell can linger even after you’ve washed your dog.
This is because a lot of dog shampoos don’t contain any form of deodoriser, so though the germs may be gone, the disgusting smell still remains – not nice for you and your family, even if your dog doesn’t mind!
What you need is a dog shampoo that is tough enough to get rid of the germs and remove the smell, while also remaining kind to your dog’s skin.
Animology is a British brand that specialises in pet care products and they have developed a fox poo-specific shampoo to use on dogs.
Not only does the shampoo contain the all-important deodoriser for getting rid of the foul smell of fox poo, the formula also is low on lather so that it’s easy to rinse, therefore avoiding the long drawn out process of trying to get all the suds out under the shower. This should be particularly reassuring for those with long-haired dogs.
The in-built conditioner, containing Pro Vitamin B5, ensures that the coat will be left soft, shiny and smelling much nicer, enabling you to let your dog near you again without wincing.
The Animology Fox Poo Shampoo is suitable for all breeds of dog and is gentle enough to be used on puppies.
There’s no definitive answer on why dogs love rolling in fox poo, cow pats, dead animals and other things we find disgusting. However it is worth noting that just because you find a certain smell unpleasant, it doesn’t mean your dog does.
Other members of the Canidae family, like foxes, place great importance on the smell of faeces ranging from territory marking to reminders of where food is buried.
It’s quite possible that the desire to roll in something smelly is a leftover instinct passed down from your dog’s ancestors as a way of showing the other members of the pack where they had been that day.
Alternatively, it could be as a way of disguising its own smell from prey, enabling the dogs to sneak up without being detected.
Dog behaviouralists are keen to point out that a dog rolling around in poo is not doing something strange or abnormal. It’s annoying to you the owner, but in terms of dog behaviour, it’s perfectly acceptable.
In order to discourage your dog from rolling in poo, then you could try a remote activated dog collar, whereby you press a button that causes a vibration in the dog’s collar when it is doing something you dislike.
Alternatively, you could just make a loud disapproving noise every time your dog does it so that it begins to associate rolling in poo with your displeasure.
If your dog likes to roll in fox poo in your garden, then the best way to stop it happening again is to get to the source of the problem and deter foxes from coming into your garden.
When ‘Fox Wars’ was first advertised on the BBC, I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect and I was slightly concerned that the documentary was going to concentrate only on the negative aspects of foxes.
However, upon watching it, I was pleased to find that it was a very balanced programme, looking at both fox lovers and fox dislikers, as well as showing the complexities that occur in the world of fox control.
Importantly, it also looked at foxes in urban areas and the countryside and resisted the temptation of looking only at London’s urban foxes, though of course, the topic of foxes in London was covered.
Narrated by the always-excellent Rebecca Front, the show introduced us to some interesting characters.
On the pro-fox side, we had the quite anti-social Nobby from Barnet, who enjoyed feeding foxes in his junk-filled back garden, much to the annoyance of some of his neighbours.
In amongst his old oil drums, barbeques, plastic containers and bricks, Nobby feeds a combination of cat and dog food to the fox, with the fox responding eagerly to his calls.
If Nobby was a fox lover who came across as a bit of an oddball in a street that was very anti-fox, we were also introduced to the more likeable Kate, who lives in a cul-de-sac in Nottingham in which her and her neighbours are all very keen fox watchers.
They regularly put out food and watch from behind a curtain, enjoying watching and learning from the foxes’ behaviour.
One of the anti-fox brigade is the outspoken Janet, from Newport in South Wales:
“If I can hit it unconscious, then I will, then put it in a dustbin and and drive it down to the nearest tip!”
She’d had enough of foxes pooing in her garden. The smell and discolouration of her lawn had caused her to buy several fox deterrent products (details below).
The camera crew set up a camera in her garden and it’s worth watching just to see her reaction when she’s shown the footage!
Again, to balance out loud Janet, just down the road from Nobby is Sophia, a mild mannered fox disliker, who just wants to protect her bantam hens rather than cause any harm to the fox.
She also lists a variety of fox repellents she’s tried, though reveals her brother and father drew the line at urinating around the garden as a means of deterring the fox.
While fun and interesting to watch, these people aren’t really surprising – urban dwellers, who either like or dislike foxes.
However, what this documentary reveals, and something that is very under-discussed, is that there are differing opinions between fox controllers who are brought in to deal with the fox situation.
On the one hand, we have Tim, who is an experienced fox controller with a gun licence and specialises in shooting foxes in urban areas with his silenced rifle.
While Tim is an animal lover, he also has no problem with humanely shooting foxes if it helps to solve the problems of people who have asked him to sort it out.
On the other hand, we see Terry and Graham from Fox-a-gon, who specialise in “evicting and moving foxes on” rather than destroying them.
They would rather move a fox on from the place where it’s causing a nuisance, instead of killing it only for another fox to come and take it’s place within a week to ten days.
We also see Terry volunteering for The Fox Project, a charity that looks after sick or injured foxes and has released almost 10,000 foxes back into the wild.
Terry also makes one of the most profound statements of the documentary:
“All this that we see around us, this beautiful landscape, with it’s vast variety of flora and fauna, all runs in balance and harmony. If you start taking out what you don’t like – the squirrels, the badgers, the foxes – then you end up with nothing.”
We also get a perspective on foxes in the countryside from Tony in Oxfordshire, a farmer who has lost a massive 36 chickens to a fox in one session (we get to see the devastating crime scene), and David, a sheep farmer from the South East, who has a couple of his lambs destroyed by a fox.
Their frustration at losing animals (and therefore money) to a fox is very understandable.
The point is also made that in the vast open ares of the country, bringing in fox controllers to shoot foxes is their only option, as they can’t employ the same fox repellent methods that you can in enclosed urban gardens.
Lee, a fox controller who has shot around 2,300 foxes in ten years, is brought in to deal with the lamb-killing fox on David’s farm.
He makes the interesting point that many people who like foxes just see the cute and cuddly red fur, but they don’t see the damage that a fox can do to the business of a sheep or chicken farmer.
This is a valid opinion and it’s the presentation of views like this that makes the documentary so interesting.
In conclusion, Fox Wars is a very well-made and though-provoking documentary about foxes and how they impact our lives.
It steers well clear of tabloid-style sensationalism, presenting a balanced view and allowing the viewer to make their own mind up about their feelings for foxes.
Some interesting facts the documentary told us were:
Fox Repellent Products shown in the documentary are:
4m22s – Brown Fence Wall Spikes
8m10s – Foxolutions Scoot Fox Repellent
Angie, a reader of this site, got in contact via the contact form and asked this question:
“Brilliant site and really useful information. You recommend obtaining dog hair and putting in strategic places in the chicken hut. Can this be either male or female or only male please? Many thanks. Angie.”
Hi Angie,
Thank you for your email and for the kind compliments about the site!
If you can obtain some dog hair, then ideally you should try and get a combination of male and female clippings, as well as from different varieties of dog.
Foxes are naturally incredibly wary of dogs and the more variety of dog smells they can detect, the better, as the perceived threat to their safety becomes greater and the less inclined they are to hang around.
If you also own dogs, then try and encourage them to urinate around the area(s) that the fox comes into your garden and also around your chicken hut.
Unfortunately, fox repellent is not an exact science and it may require you to try a few different methods before you find one that works for you and your garden. As we’ve mentioned several times on the site, being persistent and consistent is the key to success!
Some of other articles you might find useful are:
10 Reasons Foxes Come Into Your Garden
Kind regards,
FoxRepellentExpert.com
You can submit any questions via our Contact Page.
When searching for a suitable fox repellent, it’s very tempting to think that in order for a product to be deemed ‘successful’, you should be able to use the deterrent on Wednesday and the fox would be gone on Thursday.
Indeed, if you look at any fox deterrent products on Amazon, the comments section is often littered with disappointed people declaring a product a failure because it didn’t instantly solve their urban fox problem.
Here is a good example on a popular and effective fox repellent:
“Useless! I’m sure the foxes were laughing as I sprayed this around the garden liberally, they certainly were out as usual straight afterwards.”
Not intended as a criticism of this person in any way, this type of comment is fairly common as most people, quite understandably, are not fully aware of the psychology and behaviour of foxes.
Our expectations of how a repellent should work probably comes from our experience with insect repellent.
If we use a deet-based mosquito repellent, for example, mosquitoes are instantly repelled. However, repelling and deterring foxes doesn’t work in quite the same way.
Successful, long term fox deterrence requires an understanding of how foxes operate.
Foxes are resilient and adaptable creatures that have been able to thrive in our towns and cities for decades and this helps to explain why there are around 33,000 of them living in urban areas.
They are inquisitive and persistent, with excellent hunting and scavenging capabilities and, as with most wild animals, they are constantly on the lookout for food and danger.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, foxes are territorial animals who will do their utmost to protect their territories.
Bearing all these characteristics in mind, it may be more obvious that foxes are not animals that you can get rid of quickly, no matter how much you wish it were so.
If the fox is persistent then you need to be even more persistent and employ a great deal of patience in order to achieve success.
If you put down a scent-based repellent, the fox will sniff it and will try to overpower it with it’s own scent.
If you use an ultrasonic device, a fox will inspect it, sniff it and possibly attack it and urinate on it.
However these reactions are perfectly normal and are not a sign that the deterrent product has failed.
In fact, it’s quite the opposite, showing that your deterrent is disturbing the fox – which is exactly what you want.
Changing a fox’s behaviour over time is the key element here and you need to be consistent and persistent with your fox repellent.
If you spray some Scoot Fox Repellent on your garden, then keep spraying it for a sustained period. If it rains, spray it again. If you see the fox in your garden, spray it again.
If you use a FoxWatch Ultrasonic Deterrent, plug it into the mains, aim it at the point a fox comes in and keep it switched on.
If you use a waterproof radio as a deterrent, put it in your garden and keep it switch on at a low volume.
You need to be on the fox’s case constantly otherwise you wont get the success you desire. In the cases of the FoxWatch and the Radio, there’s not even much effort required from you!
Simply play around with the placements and leave the things switched on!
In conclusion, if you want foxes out of your garden and away from your property, find your favoured fox repellent technique(s) and keep on and on and on with it until the fox realises that it is not welcome in your garden.
Get in the mind of a fox and make your garden as unattractive and unwelcoming a place as possible, to enable it to be a more welcoming place for you!
Contrary to what many may think, there isn’t any solid scientific evidence to suggest that the urban fox population has hugely increased.
In fact, what studies have shown is that as our urban areas have grown, foxes living in our towns and cities have simply grown at the same rate.
But it’s not the crazy explosion of ‘killer foxes’ that some media outlets would have us believe.
Here’s some research to back up that statement:
In 1999, the Game Conservancy Trust’s ‘National Gamebag Census‘ estimated that there were around 33,600 urban foxes in the UK.
In 2012, the preliminary results of the survey conducted on Channel 4’s ‘Foxes Live: Wild In The City‘ series, suggested there were around 40,000 urban foxes.
That’s a gap of 13 years, during which a lot of development has taken place in urban areas across the country, so the relative increase in foxes is to be expected.
As the urban human population increases, more and more facilities are required to support this growth.
This sees an increase in things like restaurants, bars, cafes, takeaways, mini-supermarkets, all of which inadvertently provide sustenance for foxes.
Add in the fact that households waste an awful lot of food, along with many councils not providing wheelie bins and resorting to fortnightly collections, it means that there’s a very human cause behind urban foxes thriving.
Well-known wildlife expert and TV personality, Chris Packham has put it well:
“The fox population is self-regulating. If there’s not enough food, the foxes will move elsewhere or they will stop breeding. The problem in cities is we waste so much food. We drop our takeaways and so much other stuff, that foxes are able to prosper. There’s never any need to pull the trigger on [cull] them. If we just cleaned up our cities, with more bins and more responsible action, then we would have less foxes.”
A question that isn’t often asked is whether urban foxes have lost their fear of humans over the last 20 – 30 years.
The research done on 2012’s Foxes Live programme, headed by University of Brighton’s Dr Dawn Scott, found that 1.5% of people who took part in their survey reported the problem of foxes actually coming into their house.
Dr Scott was very surprised by this figure and admitted it was much higher than she had expected. However, without any data to compare this to, it’s really just an interesting statistic rather than anything conclusive about behavioural changes.
Which brings us round to the issue of humans feeding foxes. It’s a thorny issue that seems to polarise opinion among the public.
A recent phone in on Vanessa Feltz’s BBC London Radio Show had several members of the public calling in to say how much they love foxes, how they’ve always fed them and how they have no intention of stopping.
But, crucially, the ‘what’s the harm in feeding foxes’ view is generally held by people who are not experts on wildlife.
Chris Packham, who is a fan of foxes, says:
“These animals shouldn’t be hand-fed. They shouldn’t be encouraged too close to people. If you’re going to feed them, feed them at a great distance and watch them through binoculars. We don’t want to tame a fox who could confuse someone else [who doesn’t like foxes] for you.”
Peter Crowden, Pest Control Specialist & Chairman of the National Pest Technician’s Association (NPTA):
“The problem isn’t the foxes, they unfortunately have got a very bad label. The problem is the people. We have got to educate the people not to feed and encourage foxes into their homes. You can’t cuddle a fox, they are very dangerous wild animals. Numbers of foxes have not increased over the last 30 years, but a fox cannot tell the difference between a house that is happy to provide it with a source of food and one that is not.”
Dr Roger Mugford, Animal Behaviourist & founder of The Animal Behaviour Centre:
“In the country, foxes are very averse to human contact, but in London it’s different. They associate humans with food… I think it’s human behaviour that has to change and that means not feeding foxes. I think education is the way forward. I know foxes are beautiful creatures and they’re wonderful to watch, but let them be wild. By changing their mindset and turning them into semi-domesticated animals, we endanger them.”
The views of the experts quoted here do make logical sense. However fluffy and cute some of us may think they are, ultimately foxes are wild animals who are more than capable of fending for themselves without the need to receive human handouts.
Of course, it’s impossible to prove that the foxes who attacked baby twins, bit the finger off of a baby or who were caught licking a baby’s face had been the recipient of food from other people in the area, but humans trying to tame foxes by feeding them probably does more harm than good.
Foxes are a part of the urban landscape and we should count ourselves lucky that we get to see them at such close quarters.
But the statistics show that foxes are doing just fine and do not need extra help from us. Laws against feeding foxes are not necessary, but people should really think twice before (quite selfishly) putting out food for a species that doesn’t need it.
If you live in an area that has foxes, you’re inevitably going to see them whether you put food out or not.
Why encourage an animal that doesn’t need encouragement?
