Hi this is Ben from the Fox Repellent Expert website and welcome to episode 3 of this podcast.

In this episode I’m taking a look at the main reason why foxes seem to love leaving smelly deposits in your garden. Please tell me more I hear you say, so that’s exactly what i’m going to do.

——

If you’re listening to this episode then it will come as no surprise that pooing in the garden is one of the most common and frustrating problems we experience when it comes to urban foxes.

It smells terrible, it’s full of germs and they always seem to do it in the most prominent of places. For many people, this problem can be so bad that it can almost feel like the fox has a personal vendetta against them.

Of course, this isn’t the case – the fox isn’t doing it to just to spite you – but it does raise the important point of why foxes poo and spray urine at specific points in your garden. It’s rarely at random and there is usually method to the malodorousness.

So it’s important to understand that foxes are very territorial animals and for much of the year, they have a set area in which they will breed, den and generally feel comfortable in.

If necessary, foxes will leave their territory to forage for food, but they usually make their way back to their home area and spend much of their time protecting and securing it from other foxes.

As i said in episode 2, urban foxes can function in very small territories of just a tenth of a square kilometre. This means they encounter each other much more often than they would in the country and a lot of their territorial battles take place in your garden, which leads me on to my next point….

As part of the Canidae (kan-ee-dee or kan-nee-dye) family, foxes have an excellent sense of smell  – for example they can smell buried food up to 45cm below the surface. And they place huge importance on scent in order to survive.

When foxes scent mark in your garden, by fouling and spraying urine, this acts as kind of a personal signature and sends out a message to neighbouring foxes that your garden is occupied and the details of who is occupying it. 

The best way that a fox can ensure that a rival gets the message is to put its scent in the most prominent places. That’s why you’ll sometimes find poo right outside your back door, in the centre of the lawn or on a paving slab. It’s basically the fox giving the most obvious signal possible to show everyone and everything that this garden is taken.

Because a fox’s scent naturally gets weaker over time, after heavy rainfall for example, a fox will regularly top up its scent with more fouling and urinating in order to keep the concentration high. 

A fox that can smell its own scent in its territory will feel reassured that it is still in control. However, should a rival fox try and stake a claim, you will probably see an increase in fouling as the foxes battle to outscent each other and stake a claim to the territory.

Foxes are also creatures of habit and they get concerned if something changes in their environment. So if you’ve ever left a child’s toy out overnight, or put out seasonal garden furniture and wondered why it’s been pood, peed or chewed on, that’s the reason. The fox has noticed something different in the garden and is trying to establish dominance by putting its scent all over it.

So when you see a putrid poo on the patio or a loathsome log on the lawn at least now you can hopefully understand why a fox is doing it.

But what can you do to try and stop this annoying problem?

Firstly, if a fox is regularly pooing in your garden, then it’s important to remove the poo safely and conveniently. Fox faeces can contain germs so this is extra important if you have young children or dogs – especially as dogs have a tendency to eat or roll in the stuff.

Using a pooper scooper and putting it into some scented biodegradable dog poo bags is a good way of getting rid of it as you don’t have to use your hands and you can dispose of it without the risk of stinking the dustbin out. I’ll put a link to some useful tools for removing fox poo in the show notes to this episode at foxrepellentexpert.com/episode3 for you to consider

Next you’ll need to focus on ways of trying to stop foxes coming into your garden in the first place. An effective way of doing this is to use a couple of different fox deterrents that humanely but effectively disrupt the fox’s normal behaviour, turning your garden into a place that it doesn’t feel quite so comfortable.

We talked earlier about foxes feeling threatened if another fox tries to muscle in on its patch and a deterrent that takes advantage of this is Scoot Fox Repellent.

Scoot is a powder that you dilute with water and spray around your garden. The scent it creates tricks the fox into thinking a new enemy is scent marking in the garden and trying to take over. Ideally you need to spray Scoot every 2 or 3 days for a couple of weeks to maintain the concentration, just like a fox does with its own scent. Initially the fox will be back to find out what this new smell is and it will probably poo and urinate in the same spots to try and outscent this supposed new intruder. This is a normal reaction and you shouldn’t feel discouraged. You just need to keep going and continue spraying Scoot. After a couple of weeks the fox will think it has lost the battle and start keeping away from your garden in order to avoid a confrontation. I’ll put a link to Scoot in the shownotes for you to read more.

A second deterrent that works really well in conjunction with Scoot is the FoxWatch Ultrasonic Fox Deterrent. A small unit you place in your garden, the FoxWatch contains a motion sensor and emits high-pitched blasts of noise every time the fox walks in front of it. These noises are inaudible to humans but foxes find them very irritating. After repeated exposure the fox learns to associate your garden with the noise and gradually reduces its visits to your garden as a result. Again, I’ll put a link in the shownotes to the FoxWatch.

Using two or more different types of fox deterrent, like Scoot and the FoxWatch, means you’re targeting different senses, in this case the fox’s sense of smell and sense of hearing. If a fox instinctively feels under threat in variety of ways, the more likely it is to decide your garden just isn’t worth visiting, ultimately reducing the amount of poo you have to clear up.

Fox deterrence isn’t a exact science, and often relies on a bit of trial and error to get the winning combination for your garden. But I hope the information in this episode has been helpful and given you a bit of insight into the mind of a fox and why they behave in the way they do

That’s it for this episode of the Fox Repellent Expert Podcast. You can find the show notes to this episode, including links to the deterrents I mentioned by going to foxrepellentexpert.com/episode3 If you want any more information on how to humanely deter foxes from your garden, please visit foxrepellentexpert.com. Thanks for listening and I’ll see you for another interesting installment very soon.