I've got 4 baby foxes living under the shed and in the woodpile!

[happybird]

I’ve suspected for a couple weeks that some babies were over there and I just saw them for the first time! Wasn’t expecting 4!😍

I was on the deck smoking and heard some rustling in the leaves. Looked over and saw the little guys wrestling and playing. I only had my iPad on me so the first pics aren’t great- had to zoom in so the resolution is crappy. One ran and hid under the shed when I moved to the deck railing. Here’s the other three:





The shed is just out of frame, to the left. It’s a nice safe spot and the babies look good and healthy.

Will post some better pics when I get some!

[SheltieLover]

1. Awesome!!!

Ty for sharing your good fortune!

[femmedem]

2. How wonderful!

I'd have a tough time tearing myself from that deck.

Thanks for sharing the photos!

[smirkymonkey]

3. Awwww!

Such cute little babies! Thanks for sharing with us!

[Mr. Evil]

4. That is so cool!

And hurry up with those extra pics!

[Fla Dem]

5. How lucky you are! Have you seen the mom?

[happybird]

6. Not yet... I don't think

I hear foxes in the yard and in the woods around the house all night. I don’t get home from work until 8:30 or 9, and it’s usually too dark to see anything by then. Today and tomorrow are my days off, so I will be watching tomorrow evening, too!

Trying to figure out how to best get the tractor out of the shed tomorrow. I don’t want to scare them, but as you can tell by the pic, my yard is fast approaching out of control status. It must be done. I gotta mow, been putting it off for too long already. I can park the mower in the garage for the rest of the summer, getting it out of the shed as quietly as possible is going to be the tricky part. I think I can push/roll it down the ramps in neutral? Hopefully it doesn’t have any annoying safety features which will prevent that. 😖

[Marthe48]

16. Maybe you could borrow a mower

Just this once. Whatever you do, if you are out there moving around, they might go ahead and move on. Please let us know.

[robbob]

23. I am taking part in "No mow May"

It’s a real thing, and a hell of a good excuse to not cut my grass. Apparently it’s good to let pollinators have access to all the wildflowers that spring up in May. Looks kind of cool, too. In a wild meadow kind of way...

[happybird]

26. I got it out!

It rolled out pretty easily. It’s a cheap mower so it doesn’t have too many fancy safety features, I guess. It does have one that I absolutely hate: if you get up off the seat the engine cuts off. That’s a PITA when you spot a branch or rock that needs to be chucked out of the way and into the woods. No matter how much I clear debris beforehand, there’s always a few strays.

Anyhoo, before going in the shed, I made lots of noise so the foxes would move until the coast was clear. Heard them clear out and moved quickly to get the job done. Mowed the area closest to the shed first, also.

I just finished mowing (well, not really– I ran out of gas and have to go and get more... and of course, I ran out as far away from the house as possible, waaaay down by the road, and now it looks like rain. Yay! Mowing!)

Sitting on the deck now and can hear them under the shed again. What a relief!
If it doesn’t rain, I’ll get more photos of the guys this evening.

I have to keep the yard around the house pretty short or else I get lots of snakes. I do have lots of butterfly and bird friendly perennials planted. The local nursery has a ‘local wildflowers and native plants’ section that I hit up pretty hard last year when putting in the gardens.

[Marthe48]

37. Thanks for the update

no good deed goes unrewarded Hope you get the mower back in the shed. You are so kind to your fox family Bless your heart!

[JudyM]

7. It's great. They're raised under my deck every year, too.

Freaked out my cat at first but then she found them to be the best entertainment around. They play with each other like puppies. One of my neighbors has a lot of kids and they love to gather to watch from a safe distance, too.

[happybird]

9. It should be quite a show when the cicadas emerge!

They are going to have a blast, and I’ll have one watching them.

One of my cats has been hanging out by the screen door to the deck for the past couple weeks, which is very unlike him (I think he fears the outside will somehow suck him out of the house and he’ll be a stray again). Now, I think he’s been watching the foxes.

[JudyM]

14. Haha, yes!

[Marthe48]

17. My husband caught a baby fox and brought it home

Almost 50 years ago. We named her Sly and she lived in our living room, and made a den under the recliner. Also in my Mom's jade plant container. My Mom had a St. Bernard puppy, and watching them play was one of the funniest things we ever saw. My husband and I had a claustrophobic dog, who broke through a window while we went to get groceries. Sly got out and we weren't able to catch her. She lived under the porch of the house that summer and then moved on. The last time I saw her, she was sitting on the edge of the porch at sunset, and the way the sun caught her fur, she looked like a flame.

[JudyM]

18. Seriously interesting images in that story!

Vivid.
I hope you didn’t get too attached to Sly...

[Marthe48]

21. I will never forget her

but she was a wild thing. After Sly left, my husband caught a young racoon and brought it home. His name was Rocky and he lived in the bathroom closet. Our kids were getting potty trained, and I realized pretty quick that a scared raccoon protecting its nest was going to scar the kids for life, so we moved their pot to another room. We thought the raccoon would tame down. Other people we knew had had good luck taming them, but Rocky didn't want to be with us. We gave him to a friend who had a lot of woods around his house. Rocky lived in their barn, and transitioned back to his wild life. I didn't want wild animals in the house with toddlers, but once more, my intrepid husband tried to catch a baby critter. This third attempt involved a baby skunk. It bit my husband and got away. I made my husband go get rabies shots. At the time, they were free through the county health department. Fourteen shots, one a day for 2 weeks. He called the clinic from a pay phone at the local carry out to get details about the shots and talked to someone who screamed curse words through the phone and said, "Don't you f'n know you're playing with death, you idiot?" I heard every word and I was in the car 20 feet away. This same person was the doctor who gave John the shot every day. And every day, the dr. swore at John the entire time he gave him a shot. The doctor was known for his terrible bedside manner, and John was really happy when he got the last one. That experience cured him of trying to capture wild animals with his bare hands, and I was glad about that. His friends were calling him Marlin Perkins. lol Sly was my favorite. She was tidy, catlike, and made cute little cries.

After time past, my husband said he regretted catching the animals and scaring them, and never tried it again.

[JudyM]

36. Ha! He's quite a character, himself.

Gotta love the wild beasties, though.

[BobTheSubgenius]

8. They are much bigger than I expected, for some reason.

Nice pictures, a nice slice of wildlife. Enjoy your neighbours!!

[Cracklin Charlie]

10. They look a few weeks old. Their legs are long.

The ones that were born under my neighbors shed didn’t have grey/brown legs at first. They were all copper red, all over. Little short legs, like a kitten. The grey and brown fur didn’t show up for a couple, maybe three weeks, and shortly after that they moved on. They grow very fast.

[happybird]

12. I was worried at first that maybe they were coyotes

because they are so big and because of their coloring. Glad to hear you recognize how they look and an approx. age. Thank you! The Virginia coyote has made a big comeback in the past decade or two, they were virtually unheard of when I was growing up around here.

[barbtries]

11. that is very cool.

i live in a townhouse with a very small garden area in front of my house, and lately i have been hearing rustling in the shrubbery pretty regularly. So last night, I stepped out to walk the dog and startled a rabbit over on the lawn; when we went back to the front door there was a baby rabbit in my garden.

i love the critters.

[happybird]

13. Nothing is cuter than baby bunnies!

Sadly, we don’t see many rabbits around here anymore because of all the foxes.

[I_UndergroundPanther]

15. They are adorable

Cute little vulpines!!

[Duppers]

19. Just LOVE these!! ❤

Foxes are such a joy!! You're So lucky, imo.

I look forward to more pics!


I've a 2+yr history with their smaller grey, tree-climbing cousins here in Virginia. (Whenever I can get my lazybutt over to Dicks' to buy a trailcam, I'll post pics.) But here's what our little, kitty-sized guy looks like...


I'm currently feeding a male on my front porch every night!

Gray foxes smaller than their red fox cousins. And, thankfully, this one is less-trusting than his mom was - she fully trusted me & unfortunately also trusted my hunter neighbor who killed her!! So, I make no attempt to make friends with this kid since I don't want him trusting any human.

He waits until all house lights are off & all noise has stopped before he comes to eat in the wee a.m. hrs. How do I know it's him eating the treats I leave out & not a raccoon? I've often quietly spyed thru a window. Besides, Booger, a male, marks our front shrubbery & has twice marked our porch with his little feces. Yes, yuck! But I tolerate his skunky smelling urine & pick up his little turds. 😛 My next door neighbors are offended by his smell & often spray some stinky smelling yard deordant to cover it. I'd rather smell fox urine!

Yes, I love them....a lot. 😁

[ShazzieB]

29. There are foxes that climb trees?

How cool! I did not know that was a thing.

[Duppers]

30. Yep. They're amazing.

From Wiki:

The gray fox's ability to climb trees is shared only with the Asian raccoon dog and the New Guinea Wild Singing Dog [18] among canids. Its strong, hooked claws allow it to scramble up trees to escape many predators, such as the domestic dog or the coyote,[19] or to reach tree-bound or arboreal food sources. It can climb branchless, vertical trunks to heights of 18 meters and jump from branch to branch.[20] It descends primarily by jumping from branch to branch, or by descending slowly backwards like a domestic cat. The gray fox is primarily nocturnal or crepuscular and makes its den in hollow trees, stumps or appropriated burrows during the day. Such gray fox tree dens may be located 30 ft above the ground.

And they're beautiful in person & small as a cat...with a big fluffy long tail. And unfortunately, they're often too friendly. Idiots kill them.

[Solly Mack]

20. That is so cool!

I'm jealous!

[turbinetree]

22. I really like foxes....this just made my day...

[The Jungle 1]

24. I had some in my woods

I came home one night after dark and they were playing in my driveway. They were much smaller than the ones in your yard. So I figured I would stop and get out of the car. I walked up to them and got about fifty feet away. Mom was watching from the woods. She let me know she was watching. I said OK mom and got back in the car. A fox scream is disturbing.

I had the same problem with hawks one time. I was weed wacking under their nest. Again, OK mom I can do this later.

[Beacool]

25. Oh, they're so cute!!!

You're so lucky. Us city folks only see pigeons, squirrels and the occasional racoon.

[niyad]

27. Awwwwwwww, they are precious! Waiting for more pics.

[Loryn]

28. I love them!

[littlemissmartypants]

31. So lovely. Thanks. ❤ nt

[tavernier]

32. Dr. Brian May (also guitarist of Queen) is an animal's rights activist,

especially foxes. He would adore seeing your pics and story on his Instagram page. ❤️ He shares these all the time.

He is at brianmayforreal

[Grins]

34. You're going to see a lot more!

We started with seeing one (Fairfax County, VA) and now have them everywhere! I must see them about every other day. Dog goes nuts and cats starting to get nose-to-nose snarling (no combat, yet).

[FirstLight]

35. Awwwwww!

We dont have foxes here...I think coyotes beat them out.

They are so cute! I always thought of foxes as a kind of mix in temperament to both dogs & cats...they have triats of both

Keep us posted on any fun antics!