We Provide Humane Fox Trapping, Removal and Damage Repair Services

A healthy fox in the wild are an important part of the natural ecosystem. Because of diminishing habitat and increasing numbers, however, foxes living in or close to human communities sometimes create a nuisance or health hazard to people, domestic pets, and livestock.

Foxes are vulnerable to and can transmit a number of serious zoonotic diseases including rabies, mange, canine distemper, parvo enteritis, roundworms, and other endoparasites. They also may be involved in the transmission of arboviral diseases vectored by fleas, ticks, and other external parasites that commonly infest wild animals.

Wild foxes also occasionally attack and kill livestock, especially chickens, ducks, game birds, and their eggs. Less commonly, they may attack young lambs, rabbits, and other small domestic animals and pets — especially if they are left unprotected at night. Even more rarely, foxes may damage food or feed crops; but what little damage they do to crops probably is more than offset by their helping to control smaller animals and insects that are more destructive.

Why Are They Damaging My Property ?

Gray Fox and Tracks
Red Fox and Tracks

1. Their mere presence may frighten some people.
    
2. Getting into the chicken (or turkey, duck, or goose) coop or yard. May take piglets, lambs, and small pets.
    
3. In the spring, they may den underneath a porch or in a yard for a while, while they're raising their pups. Foxes generally use more than one den to raise their pups and may move them as many as 2–4 times, so this may be a short-term situation. They'll usually leave by the end of June at the latest. These dens aren't used during other seasons.
    
4. Foxes (and coyotes) will chew holes in irrigation pipes in fields and orchards.
    
5. Disease risks: Rabies, distemper. Red foxes, but not gray, get mange.

Common Myths About Foxes:

1. Foxes are much smaller than many people think. They're about the weight of a house cat (10–12 lbs.).
    
2. They don't often attack dogs or people (unless the fox is rabid). These are relatively small predators which usually hunt mice.
    
3. Pups that are alone during the day have not necessarily been abandoned. Their parents are probably out hunting for food for them. (This is also true of coyotes.)
    
4. A fox that's active during the day is not necessarily rabid. Most likely, it's a healthy animal that's feeding more often than usual, because of the demands of their young.

Description:

Red Fox: Rusty orange above, whitish below; lower legs black. Muzzle narrow; large ears pointed, black. Tail bushy, white-tipped. Eats rodents, rabbits, birds, insects, berries, fruit. Has strong scent. Native and introduced English stock now intermixed. Numbers increasing. voice Short yap, long howls.
Sign: Den often a Woodchuck burrow on a rise, entrance enlarged to 3'. Tracks: slightly larger foreprint 2 1/8" long; 4 toe pads.
Breeding: 1-10 young March to April.
Habitat: Brushy and open areas.
Activity: Mainly nocturnal, year-round; often also by day in winter.

Gray Fox: Grizzled gray above, reddish on lower sides, chest, and back of head; throat and belly white. Tail similarly colored, but has black "mane" on top and black tip. Legs and feet rust-colored. Ears prominent. Ht 14 1/8–15" (36–38 cm); L 31–44" (80–113 cm); T 8 5/8–17 3/8" (22–44 cm); HF 3 7/8–5 7/8" (10–15 cm); E 2 3/4–3G0 (7–8 cm); Wt 7 1/4–13 lb (3.3–5.9 kg).
Sign: This fox digs if necessary, and it sometimes enlarges a Woodchuck burrow, but it prefers to den in clefts, small caves, rock piles, hollow logs, and hollow trees, especially oaks. Occupied in the mating season, dens are seldom used the rest of the year. . Tracks: Foreprint about 1 1/2" (37 mm) long; hindprints as long, slightly narrower.; 4 toe pads.
Breeding: Mates January–April; 1 litter of 1–7 young born March–May; gestation 53 days.
Habitat: Varied; more often in wooded and brushy habitats than Red Fox.
Activity: Although active primarily at twilight and at night, the Common Gray Fox is sometimes seen foraging by day in brush, thick foliage, or timber. The only American canid with true climbing ability, it occasionally forages in trees and often takes refuge in them, especially in leaning or thickly branched ones.

Typical Fox Den

To evict "Sly Fox" from your home, just give one of our experts a call !

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