Trouble with Badgers and Foxes

I recently moved into a house with a small vegetable garden which is surrounded by a 3 ½ foot high picket fence and I was told this was to keep out the badgers but I’ve also seen foxes crossing our lawn. One of these animals is digging deep holes in the vegetable area and, I believe it’s a fox, jumping over the fence because I can’t see a badger jumping that height and can see no way that either animal could get through or under it.



As I’ve been told it’s a badger, which I don’t believe, I’d like other opinions – however, whichever animal it is, I feel I need to raise the height of the fence to about 6 ft.



The holes are up to about 1 foot deep, 6 – 9 inches wide, and about 2 – 3 feet long - deeper at the one end, as the animal has scraped the earth out backwards behind him. Strangely, enough, he only does this in a 10 feet by 3 feet area of the vegetable patch – he leaves the rest alone – so, what’s he after?



My questions are - Which animal is it? Why is he digging these holes? Is there a better way of keeping him out?

 

My guess would be fox; and a 6 foot fence will not prevent him from getting into your garden if he decides he wants to.

Wondering if, at some point in the past, that area of the vegetable patch was a fox den?

PS: Welcome to the forums, Quaedor37

 

Hi we moved into a village area with a lot of open ground on the outside but not directly onto our grounds.The first few weeks myself and our two cats got a couple of frights. Two foxes diff days diff sizes came upto the conservatory door which was open the cats were inside on the windowsill going mad. One also came to the passage way door i was half way down it at the time,the door was open at the bottom.This has two doors and is an alleyway the runs between the back and front between the garage and bungalow. They had been in the garden a few times. Tried alsorts the only thing that got rid of them was to clear the ground all round the boundaries.Do a lot of clearing and cutting back hard work yes and still doing it going on 4 months now. But no foxes and two happier cats and one less worried mum and a better looking garden. Good luck I hope you sort it..

 

Just read that maybe our digging and clearing and using a tiller around the boundary got rid of their marked spots if there were any. We also put up various solar lights along the back path. Thinking about it now we have a 50 foot plus raised patio wall garden about 30 foot wide that was just a mass jungle of 7 yrs over growth.Total nightmare clearing Im thinking thats were the foxes had their home amongst that lot as they seemed to be around the both back doors a lot. Thanks for that info Marley Farley as its made things a little clearer for us to.

 

Living in the 'sticks' as we do, we have a serious fox problem as the nasty, mangy, smelly, flea-ridden things prefer the easy pickings they can get in our gardens to hunting around in the fields and, as though that weren't enough, when they're fed up with harrying anyone's chickens, they're not above attacking cats - in our lane alone two have been killed this summer and another seriously injured.

So bad was the problem that the Council carried out a controlled cull to reduce the numbers, but as we all know, remove one fox and two will move in to replace it - it doesn't help either that this area is used by the RSPCA to release foxes which have been found injured and subsequently nursed back to health!!

What I've found to be effective is Wild Animal Repellent which you mix up and spray around but it didn't seem to work for my neighbour who instead, recently bought a battery operated ultra-sonic device ('Strikeback Advanced Animal Repeller Sonic/Strobe'
from Amazon for around £40 I think). He seems to think it's working.

 

get a shotgun license and a shotgun. oh and shooting lessons

 

OMG those poor cats..if that was my cats I hunt and shoot the lot so would everyone in this area..All cat lovers..RSPCA need to find somewere else that much is obvious.

 

Thanks to all for your replies,

I don't think I stand much chance as the lady next door tells me that she has a fox living under one of her very large pine trees - and she seems pleased about it! On top of that she, and the previous owner, put in a small doorway through the fence to let the badgers pass across our lawn and into the other neighbours gardens. I guess I'm stuck with the foxes and badgers. Even if I blocked the hole up,the fence is only about 4 ft high. I suppose I'll have to go back to Plan 'B', which is to fit computer-controlled machine guns at each corner of the vegetable plot, with sensors placed at strategic positions around the garden!

Thanks Marley-Farley for the extract - I've found a few piles of fox excrement, as the article said.

A few weeks back, I saw the fox facing what I thought was a small black dog but it turned out to be our black cat. Suddenly the was a yelp and the fox shot off followed by the cat. Two days later, another yelp and I was in time to see our cat running up a tree followed by the fox - it was obviously a different fox!

Thanks for your help - I'll read all again and see what I can do - if anything.

I

 

You could try urine. Members here have suggested in the past that if you sprinkle, for want of a better word, human, male urine round the edges of your garden it does help to keep these beasties away. The animals apparently pick up the scent and it registers that it's the territory of another animal.

 

I had trouble from what I assumed to be a badger tearing holes in a new rabbit proof fence whenever I patched it up again until I got fed up with it and used some weldmesh (bit of an old heater guard cage actually) to block the hole, and instead of tearing a hole through the chicken wire either side of it, Mr Badger from then on took another route and never caused any more damage (or perhaps was hit by a car that night, I'll never know).

 

I had thought of urine because several people had suggested that, on the Internet, but so far haven't tried it. I need to work on my insanity plea to the judge, first, just in case!

It does sound the most feasible and the simplest method but I'd better explain it to my wife first as, at my age, it could be misconstrued!

The foxes seem to be the biggest problem - I know that the neighbours, I've spoken to, are not happy but there's little they or I can do. Apparently, the foxes are recent comers as, so I've been told, they weren't there three/four years ago.

I have a long back garden so that there are six fences and I just had to smile when a picture came into my head of all six neighbours, out in their garden late one night, all carrying out their fox prevention duties, and, suddenly, spotting each other over the fences!

I'll keep reading, and asking, and thinking - thanks to all!

 

If your wife thinks you've gone totally mad Quaedor show her this thread...........then she'll think we're all mad.

You can always, shall we say 'decant' the urine to prevent embarrassment.

 

I told my wife what was suggested and what I plan to do and she fell about laughing. I think she's wrong - it's a brilliant idea.

I have found an old, unused plastic petrol container that i could use as a decanter - it's either that or the glass one on the side board marked "Whisky" - but that's a bit dangerous!