Fox in the fruit tree

They don’t bother the chickens here. Just ate every single pear on both the trees. Will a tree guard keep them out? Does a radio in the garden really help? Cute little buggers though. Caught red handed.

Foxes climb that well??

How did you happen to catch it?

Grey foxes can climb as well as a cat with specially adapted claws. I would bet if foxes weren't there, squirrels would be similarly bad.

Foxes are true omnivores (ours are reds). They will certainly take fruit. And more -- one year they dug up a bunch of our tasty french fingerling potatoes (they ignored other varieties, and everything else in the garden, as far as we could tell).

Luke Bryan wrote:Foxes climb that well??

How did you happen to catch it?

It is a dwarf tree. So lower to the ground. I put up a game cam. They made it to top and spent hours getting all the fruit.

They are gorgeous, if greedy!

If you are a man or have one to hand, you can try weeing on all the trees and generally all around the orchard. Sounds sort of funny, but foxes are well known to be detered by human male urine. Apparently they mistake it for the scent mark of a rival (and more testosterone-y) male fox and clear off, thinking they are in someone else's patch - which in this case, they are! The first wee of the day is supposedly the most... ahem... 'powerful'.

Naturally you need to do this regularly over the long term in order to be and remain effective, but it does (apparently) work quite well and is free. I haven't tried it.

It does not work for female urine unfortunately.

If you cannot find a male human anywhere to hand, you can apparently also buy a urea-based product that mimics this effect.

I definitely think that having a male pee around the area is worth trying... but I will mention, I have heard the same claim for keeping deer and many other animals away. I have only seen it work sporadically.

Rudyard Blake wrote:They are gorgeous, if greedy!

If you are a man or have one to hand, you can try weeing on all the trees and generally all around the orchard. Sounds sort of funny, but foxes are well known to be detered by human male urine. Apparently they mistake it for the scent mark of a rival (and more testosterone-y) male fox and clear off, thinking they are in someone else's patch - which in this case, they are! The first wee of the day is supposedly the most... ahem... 'powerful'.

Naturally you need to do this regularly over the long term in order to be and remain effective, but it does (apparently) work quite well and is free. I haven't tried it.

It does not work for female urine unfortunately.

If you cannot find a male human anywhere to hand, you can apparently also buy a urea-based product that mimics this effect.

I do have access to morning male urine. That’s a sentence I never thought I would need to type. Haha!

We saw a fox this morning vigorously eating what I think were mountain laurel fruits, which I know are poisonous to dogs. Is the mountain laurel in Texas  different? Or can foxes eat fruits poisonous to other animals?