My daughter in urban Birmingham has foxes in her garden they regularly seen there and are somewhat destructive and she finds them a bit intimidating.
She thinks they are probably living under a large she semi-permanent at the bottom of the garden which she can't get all the way around and can't find the exit/entry holes. Also under next door's shed.
She paid a pest man quite a bit a few years back and they seemed less prevalent but she is having a daily problem with them again.
Cute as they may appear, they are becoming a nuisance and she'd like them to go.
She could pay the pest man again I suppose but that feels like throwing good money after bad.
Anyway short term does anyone have experience of deterrents and whether they really work or not? They seem to fall into four categories:
- Ultrasonic devices
- Motion activated water sprinklers
- Sprays: Astringent / Scent Maskers (e.g., Vitax Stay Off) or Aversive Bitter Sprays (e.g., The Big Cheese)
- Natural Intense Scents (e.g., Fox PestSpray - citronella, Chili, Garlic, Lemongrass)
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A quick Google turned up this from the RSPCA: www.rspca.org.uk/adviceandwelfare/wildlife/foxes/garden
Is there a fox family with cubs present?
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Tue 18 Aug 26 at 10:36
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Foxes have a high sense of smell and dislike strong citrus smell.
Try crushed garlic, chili powder, and citrus peels.
Planting like lavender, rosemary, mint, and marigolds.
Plenty deterrent sprays advertised but stuff from the kitchen cupboard is worth trying
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Thanks. There have been cubs, they are probably what she filmed yesterday and today mornings playing with her plants. These are brave creatures and are regularly playing in her garden during the day.
She is about as far from being a gardener as you possibly can be and had most of it paved over but we insisted she should put some colour in so (as a bit of a joke and to appease the bank of mum and dad!) she got some cheap plastic flowers from Temu and these are what the foxes are playing with. Video below is from today and will disappear after a short time.
youtube.com/shorts/7CYgLwaaSvo?feature=share
And yes, they've had a little rain up there!!! :-)
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Plastic is the worse thing ever, foxes love chewing it up. The little geets decided they needed to chew chunks out of my caravan hookup cable, dont think one has been killed yet.
please please DO NOT poison them, too much danger to other wildlife and domestic pets.
My dog keeps the back garden fox free, but they tease her through the chain link fence
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She has a cat but it's a bit too timid for fox hunting :-)
Not planning upon poison, you end up with rotting corpses.
She could do with putting a bit of effort into find the foxholes and putting down some deterrent there but I suspect some will be out of reach - I think it is a well established home for them - the pest man thought they might have acquired it from badgers.. And I doubt they'd go away.
I reckon it's more a case of "managing" them, learning to live with them (as she has done for some years!). But when Temu plastic flown halfway round the world for pennies is at stake... :-)
We sometimes have a rat or two here, I did put a couple of bait boxes down with rat poison. A couple of weeks ago there was a rat, in broad daylight, hobbling across the lawn. Seen him out there before. He didn't scuttle off when approached. SWPMBO later found him curled up and dead in the courgettes. No idea if it is was the poison or maybe dehydration or what got him - he was lucky the kites didn't see him when he was moving so slowly out in the open!!
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" he was lucky the kites didn't see him"
I think the kites were lucky not to have eaten a (potentially) poisoned rat.
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The RSPCA approved method of getting rid of foxes is to beat them to death with a baseball bat while dressed in a kimono.
tinyurl.com/rspca-fox-deterrent
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Can't get my head around why anyone would want to deter wildlife from there garden let alone put out poison....
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Urban foxes are a nasty pest.
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Our niece’s much loved rabbit was taken by a fox in broad daylight in a city suburb before foxes became common. We now live in a rural-ish area and the two people we know who keep chickens have lost some of them to foxes. They seem to specialise in taking heads off and killing far more than they can eat.
For myself I would discourage but not harm, live and let live and all that.
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Deterring foxes - Bromptonaut
