Fox in the garden!! March 29th 2011

We had a fox in the garden again. This time I think it is a young vixen. She must be very fit to get over the fences we have here. I don't think she could really fit through the little gaps that the hedgehogs come in through. She was a bit curious about things and even checked out one of the boxes that the hedgehogs were using. Here are a couple of videos of her visiting the garden.

Luckily she hasn't stayed. We only saw her for three days. After the first day I sent Brian out to preform his duty and it seems to have worked. Apparently human urine puts them off. Since then I have been told that this is an old farming practice especially when lambing. Because lambs are so weak when they are born the foxes will take advantage and one of the old practices was to collect urine and then sprinkle it on the new born lambs to keep foxes away. Another friend told me that apparently the same works for tom cats visiting the garden. But we are still getting cats in the garden so either none of them are toms or our neighborhood cats don't seem to mind. Anyway, we haven't seen lady fox for about a week now which is great. Although I did find her rather a beautiful animal to watch.
   We now have the three boys and Suzy roaming about the garden at night. And this morning Suzy was being wooed by Tyler and Harry. Poor girl!!! She didn't get much chance to eat last night so she was here at around 6am which is rather late for her to be about. I think it was the first time I had ever seen her in daylight.
  We have put Sam and Frodo out on the patio in the soft release pens now. And the three girls are down in the conservatory waiting for their turn in the soft release pens. The thing is..... Frodo has decided to hibernate again. So this is going to slow things up a bit. I may have to put him back into a cage and put one of the girls out in the pen. That would drive the local males nuts for a bit. They tend to have only one thing on their minds at this time of the year. Oh and Cookie isn't alpha male after all...... Tyler and Harry keep trying for the  position. It is funny to watch Tyler stomping through the garden looking for someone to rumble with or someone to woo. Silly boy gives us hours of enjoyment watching his antics.