Fox query

old keeper

Well-Known Member
For more years than I care to remember the fox has been my main interest and quarry. Over those years I had quite a few people say to me , leave the foxes alone as they control the rabbits. Since the advent of thermal, I've spent on average four or five nights a week both watching and controlling the fox.

last night I was in one of my favourite spots waiting for a fox, there were a few rabbits about, and eventually a fox appeared and had a half-hearted run at a rabbit. With nothing better to do than think, my mind went back over the years and I tried to remember how many times I had seen a fox catch an adult rabbit, and it was remarkably few. Certainly, they catch a fair number of young rabbits in the spring to help feed the cubs but during the winter months adult rabbits are certainly not easy prey. However, they are very useful as sentries, letting me know when a fox is in the vicinity.

I wondered how many of the fox shooting fraternity have seen many foxes catch rabbits. Possibly the terrain makes a difference as down here in Devon the fields are relatively small.
 
January dog fox. Watched him catch the rabbit in bottom of Dale then shot him carrying it further up. Bonus rabbit for my trouble!
 

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That's a fine piece of footage. Cottis. The other night I shot a fox carrying a chicken off the poultry farm. It dropped the bird and ran for about thirty yards before dropping dead. Half an hour later another fox appeared and homed in on the dead bird, as it picked it up that too was dropped. Result!
 
That's a fine piece of footage. Cottis. The other night I shot a fox carrying a chicken off the poultry farm. It dropped the bird and ran for about thirty yards before dropping dead. Half an hour later another fox appeared and homed in on the dead bird, as it picked it up that too was dropped. Result!
Good to see they are not the only opportunists out there :rofl:
 
For more years than I care to remember the fox has been my main interest and quarry. Over those years I had quite a few people say to me , leave the foxes alone as they control the rabbits. Since the advent of thermal, I've spent on average four or five nights a week both watching and controlling the fox.

last night I was in one of my favourite spots waiting for a fox, there were a few rabbits about, and eventually a fox appeared and had a half-hearted run at a rabbit. With nothing better to do than think, my mind went back over the years and I tried to remember how many times I had seen a fox catch an adult rabbit, and it was remarkably few. Certainly, they catch a fair number of young rabbits in the spring to help feed the cubs but during the winter months adult rabbits are certainly not easy prey. However, they are very useful as sentries, letting me know when a fox is in the vicinity.

I wondered how many of the fox shooting fraternity have seen many foxes catch rabbits. Possibly the terrain makes a difference as down here in Devon the fields are relatively small.
I have often thought exactly the same , I have never seen a fox catch a rabbit.
 
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Shot foxes carrying rabbits but never an adult rabbit, always pie rabbit size or smaller. Doubt very much a fox would catch an adult, they don't seem to have the stalking and ambush skills of say a cat.
One of my daughters has a very large black and white cat with only one eye,he specialises in catch and coming home with wood pigeon. Far superior hunting skills compared to a fox IMO.
 
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Had a lovely time watching a fox play around a rabbit or hare in a field, rolling around it and leaping about like a cat would. I quite forgot I was looking for deer.
 
I have seen it once, was rabbiting with the .22rf, a fox came lopping down the field dipped its head into a burrow entrance and carried on with a rabbit I hadn't seen, it never broke its stride,
 
Never see one catch a rabbit - but one would have caught a kid in front of me if i had not shot it
 
In one of the foxing books I read a few years ago it had a pie chart showing what food and how much and as you say rabbit was low . If I remember correctly worms and bugs and berries were quite high depending on the time of year
 
Around the free range chicken sheds on a small parcel of land is an abundance of rabbits.
Everytime I go there I do a head count of the wildlife with the thermal, and it's always consistent.
3 deer
2 Newcastle supporters
96 rabbits

We leave the rabbits as a distraction for the foxes, they then seem to ignore the chicken sheds.
Which is a bonus, but you always get one that enjoys a bit of tunnelling.

The only time I've seen the foxes take rabbits is in march / april when its easy to catch the young, even though I've seen them lunge for an adult during the year but they've failed to catch it.
The numbers may peak at 140 then but by the autumn there back down to the high nineties.
Rabbits act as great a early warning system and let me know when a fox is about even if he's on the adjoining field.
 
Around the free range chicken sheds on a small parcel of land is an abundance of rabbits.
Everytime I go there I do a head count of the wildlife with the thermal, and it's always consistent.
3 deer
2 Newcastle supporters
96 rabbits

We leave the rabbits as a distraction for the foxes, they then seem to ignore the chicken sheds.
Which is a bonus, but you always get one that enjoys a bit of tunnelling.

The only time I've seen the foxes take rabbits is in march / april when its easy to catch the young, even though I've seen them lunge for an adult during the year but they've failed to catch it.
The numbers may peak at 140 then but by the autumn there back down to the high nineties.
Rabbits act as great a early warning system and let me know when a fox is about even if he's on the adjoining field.
So the rabbits keep the foxes distracted from going after the chickens
So where do the two Newcastle supporters three old deer come in 😉
 
i shot a fox few years back where he was lying low to the ground because some hares was boxing and every time they came close he would try to grab one so he had to go as there was only a handful on the property and the landowner wanted to see the hares but never seen one catch a rabbit
 
Foxes tend to catch rabbits when they were jugged up, that is why they make a half hearted chase.
 
I was out rabbiting , piled up a dozen or so went back to the pile half an hour later and all the heads had gone, I just
saw a very happy badger walking off , well a big fat badger.:lol:
 
I’ve not seen a fox catching rabbits but a few years ago I used to lamp for rabbits on a small farm. I’d shoot one and leave it to pick later but ended up having them disappear- I twigged when on returning for one I noticed a fox running off with it. That one fox (I assume) plagued me for a long time even nicking rabbits I stockpiled on a 6ft high stack of pallets. My teenage son came out one night with me and I told him that we needed to pick up after each shot because there would be a fox watching us - so he turned around, lit the lamp and 30yards away sitting on it’s haunches like a dog was a fox just looking at us!
I’ve also seen a badger jump and kill a large hare at night. I was watching through a nightsight and saw the badger come into the field from a wood where there was a sett. Some hares moved away and one dived into some long grass - the badger sauntered past the grass but suddenly dived into it and came out dragging the hare. What amazed me was the violence of the kill. The badger literally bludgeoned the hare to death with its front paws, literally jumping up and smashing the hare over and over. Then it just dragged it back to the wood pausing a couple of times to pummel it again.
 
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