Visitor to the patio!

[bunn]

There is a fox cub sunbathing on my patio, right outside the kitchen door!

It can see me looking at it through the window and it hasn't run away.

Looks like it has mange - it keeps scratching and its back is all manky.



Awwww.

Poor little mite. He has run off now, so he's presumably not quite as ill as I thought when I first saw him. He has done a big poo by the grape vine, so I think he has been eating my grapes, (and possibly nipping in through the cat door for a spot of James Wellbeloved's best as well.)

I have shut the rabbits into their smaller securer pen. They are furious, but it seems like too much of a risk.

I've also sent off for some mange treatment from the National Fox Welfare Society. I know my neighbours have been trying to shoot the foxes, as they have been after their chickens and are distressingly mangey.

I don't think they have had a lot of luck though. If I can treat this little lad for mange I will do: if they later shoot him, too bad, but at least he won't be living in such discomfort. I do hope he will leave my bunnies alone though!

Comments

[the-marquis.livejournal.com]

Yep! That's mange. I'm still not sure of the guilt in the whole fox & chickens things so I'll keep out of that one.

[pellegrina.livejournal.com]

Awww, bless. malaheed objects to my proposal to feed the foxes, as he says it will attract Vermin (I'd have thought the presence of foxes would discourage Vermin, personally) and that fox poo stinks, and our neighbours are trying to get rid of them out of concern for their three young children, so I don't feed them.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

He looked a bit small to me to be killing chickens, and trotted right past our rabbit run on the way out. But perhaps his parents have been after the chickens.

It is a bit odd though - when I caught some people lamping in the field over the way they did say that the foxes had had their chickens, but a while back when we had a couple of stray dog attacks on our bunnies, I went over to warn the neighbours and I'm sure they said their coop was dog-proof then. Odd.

**thought** maybe the neighbours I saw lamping were other neighbours? It was as black as the inside of my blackest hat, so I'd not necessarily recognise them. I think of my nearest neighbours as the Chicken People as they own That Bloody Cockerel, but there are other Fowl Folk out there.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I don't want to feed them - the last thing they need to learn round here is that people are nice because I suspect a lot of people won't be.

I'm prepared to put out a few honey sandwiches with mange treatment on them to try to reduce the suffering of that particular individual, if he comes round this way again. I did wonder if he had been dumped by some helpful soul trying to 'relocate wildlife' from Plymouth or somewhere, as the sites on mange seem to suggest it is more likely to be an urban problem. Might be just more people reporting it in cities though of course.

[pellegrina.livejournal.com]

What is "lamping"?

I think foxes also climb better than dogs, based on the behaviour of the urban foxes who live in the (reasonably dog-proof) electricity sub-station.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

I just had to google that. I initially assumed it was a typo, though for what? (LARPing? Lambing?) Then I wondered it was some strange Cornish custom. But apparently it's the night-time shooting of foxes and things.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Lamping is where you stand in a field in the dark and make a noise like a dying rabbit. Then someone sweeps a torch round and a man with a gun tries to shoot any suitably eye-like reflections.

Before you say it, yes, people do get killed lamping - there was a case in the paper the other day where the gunman shot dead a child who had strayed away from the party. I'm not exactly enthused about them doing it near my cats either.

[(Anonymous)]

I thought foxes WERE Vermin??? - Neuromancer

[(Anonymous)]

Good photo! - Neuromancer

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

This sounds incredibly... Well, I'm just amazed that they let it happen in this day and age, when pretty much everything else gets regulated against on health and safety grounds. I'd never heard of it before. You learn something new every day...

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I wasn't sure if there was a fixed definition, so I looked it up. There is a question recorded in Hansard about it from 2003. It says there is no legal definition of 'vermin'. It seems to be a rude word which can be applied to any animal, person or race that is annoying you.

Foxes in the UK are legally protected against poisoning and gassing, I learn - a restriction that would not apply to rats or cockroaches. For that matter, you can legally gas rabbits, though I don't think you can poison them.

Clearly the foxes are annoying my neighbours, but on the other hand, their cockerel is annoying me! So, six of one, half a dozen of the other.

[the-marquis.livejournal.com]

I was under the impression that lamping was illegal.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Lamping with dogs is illegal, I believe, under the new hunting with dogs legislation (though I think that covers hunting with more than 2 dogs, so possibly you can still do it with only 2? Don't know, but I do know a lot of lurchers are coming into rescue at the moment because of that restriction.)

Lamping with guns is not illegal, unless you do it to a protected species. I dug out that story about the guy who shot his stepson:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/gun/Story/0,2763,1536746,00.html

makes it fairly clear that it is legal, if not exactly safe!

[king-pellinor.livejournal.com]

That article does refer to an "illegal expedition", too.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I didn't see the details of the Yorkshire one, as it's not local, but I assume they were lamping after deer, or in a nature reserve or something like that.

It gets mentioned in our local news (which is mostly very pro-hunting) fairly often, as a legal but dangerous alternative to fox-hunting with hounds.