Could the expert fox shooters please share their knowledge on the foxes habits, calls, rituals, etc. etc. I would like to learn more. Oh, could you tell me more about when the vixen is pregnant, gives birth, and when the young become independent, as even though I do want to control my fox population, I would not want to shoot highly pregnant vixens, or shoot the mother away from dependent young.
Shooting any pregnant animal is always a tough situation but unfortunatly a task which needs to be done when there is a need, and it is more humane to shoot a pregnant vixen than leave cubs to starve, plus take them now and they are less of a problem later.
I would have expected cubs in my area to be dropped by now, yet I have shot 5 foxes in the last 4 days, 3 of them vixens and none had welped yet. But talking to other keepers around the country they have had cubs already and the earliest litter I heard of this year was dug in late January.
Hence you just cant put a exact date on cubbing and im convinced that the harder winters we have had, certainly in my part of North Yorkshire have delayed mating and cubbing.
Cubs become independant of the vixen very quickly and once they are moving away from the earth they are a very short leap from becoming natural killers.
The retired keeper on my neighbouring estate used to have an unhelpful habit of baiting heavily all year dumping hundreds of rabbits and cull chickens with the idea that the foxes wouldnt kill pheasants and would just take from his baiting points.
I spent many evenings having to mop up his work and it gave me a great insight into cub behaviour and I watched many a cub dash in and grab a carcass off a heap before legging it to hide the spoils....then reappear and catch a pheasant stupid enough to be watching one of its litter mates raiding the pile. And these cubs I would imagine were only 7-8 weeks old.
Incidently the practice of baiting made for an unusually high fox population and at one point he had 5 litters within 1/2 mile of riverbank and a hell of alot of work for me tidying them up.
As for foxes not coming in to the call, ive found that certain times of the year it just doesnt work, especially when they are mating for obvious reasons and April for some reason seems to be very hard when it comes to adult charlies.
Also having more than one call with you can usually help, if the first doesnt work, try another, then something totally different, most of my calling is done by hand or the wam but I always have a couple more to hand to create a different tone.
Ive had much more success calling in the last few weeks and on more than one occassion have managed to bring in the dog and vixen together and deal with them both.