By Spartan
United Kingdom 
Hello to all of the Gardeners question team
We have been fortunate to have lived at our present home, which has an acre of garden, for more than 30 years. We had two donkeys when the children were young, and have had resident foxes and badgers at times, also visiting pheasants on occasions, rabbits and lots of birds, insects and pondlife.
My query to you though is maybe somewhat different from the kind that you generally receive. It concerns the problems experienced with foxes (the badgers moved on many years ago). They did not bother us when the children were young, but for many years now have been increasingly troublesome in digging holes in the lawn area nearest to the house (approx. 12m x 30m). I have ensured the fencing and gates covering the area are secure and highish, to no avail. It is definitely worse in the spring and autumn and when we go away on holiday. We were recently away for more than two weeks and the lawn rather resembled a ploughed field when we returned. I have tried PIR activated lighting (that was great for fox mating), lighting supplemented by a siren, jeyes fluid on cloths and sticks, high frequency sounders, covering the lawn as much as possible etc – all with very limited success.
The foxes have a den at the bottom of the garden and in a neighbours garden; they do not appear to need much sleep and we often see them lying in our wildflower lawn further down the garden, dozing near the their den in the sun or wandering about. They are so well known to us that I have given the most recent ones names. The 3 most recent culprits were born in the garden, there is Norman (no tail – he is a sturdy fox who was born without a tail). Willie (with a white bit on her tail) and Bertie (black bit on tail). It was quite a delight to see their three heads pop up, together with their Mother’s head, when we were passing the wildflower lawn 4/5 years ago and they had just been born. It is Willie and her recent cub who are presently seen the most.
So there have been rather nice moments with our foxes over the years (one young fox used to run around with the children even at dusk time), but this is counterbalanced by the aggravation caused by the digging of holes in particular on the lawn closest to the house. If I fill the holes in they are invariably dug out almost immediately, and if I cover the holes up new ones are dug nearby.
It does have its amusing moments, but I would emphasise that being not able to limit the foxes from the one area of garden has become a battle which we find increasingly trying, and would much appreciate if you are able to consider a solution (my most recent thoughts have been to rent a dog for example).
Many thanks and we wish you continued success and enjoyment with the programme.
Peter and Sheila Cullen
19 Oct, 2011
Answers
Hi Sheila & Peter, well we have had a lot of problem with foxes in our garden, not to your extent by the way!, but we got fed up with a family of five cavorting around the flower beds, the deck and anywhere they pleased dumping there little messages of poo! We resorted to the 'urine' method, something I read about years ago and it has worked!! My hubby pees in a bottle through the day and then, as he calls it, 'spreads his joy' before bedtime! It has stopped the blighters from defacating everywhere so we think it is a worth while project. Also, try buying very cheap water in litre bottles, we buy morrisons still water at 17p a litre and remove the labels and lay bottles on their side anywhere you like, apparently the foxes see their own reflection and run!, This method has kept them off our deck. Now you might think I'm mad, but we honestly would try anything once!
19 Oct, 2011
Don't you have an exciting life Grandmage! And a very compliant hubby - I don't think mine would oblige like that. I have suggested that he might like to enrich the compost bin in the same way, but no joy so far. I suppose we ladies could always use a jug...
19 Oct, 2011
Lol Stera. He is a gem, but to be honest we would try anything just to get rid of the problem! and yes its great for the compost bin but at the mo it goes round the garden instead.My grandson often needs to pee in the garden! and their one courgette plant reached five foot in length and is still producing fruits!!
20 Oct, 2011
Your own urine will work fine on the compost heap, Steragram, doesn't have to be male. But for driving off foxes, I suspect it does need to be male.
20 Oct, 2011
I hate to say it, but OH has been doing the "pee in an old detergent bottle and transfer it to the watering can" for some time now at my behest. (He's very good like that) We do get foxes from time to time - they are attracted to the chicken house next door - but they are not a problem - they were a poor bunch and deterred eventually by the neighbours' dogs. what we do or DID get are polecats, which have a distinctly whiffy presence themselves and are a real threat to livestock, cats and kittens included. When we arrived in this house, we puzzlingly found very ancient, fossilised entire eggs up in our loft, plus a lot of broken shells. Our vendor told us they would run up the stone walls carrying these eggs in their mouths and "Stockpile" them under our eaves. They used to nest in our woodpiles, too, and you could smell 'em a mile off, but not any more. Yes, the lawn benefits as well. When we have one worth mentioning. Do try it. You have nothing to lose.
21 Oct, 2011
G.. Blind Me. And hold my Nose too. Why don't just cut to the quick and put the loo out in the garden. One can sneak out to it at night to issue a repellent or two and in the day it can do double duty as a bird bath.
21 Oct, 2011
You'd never cut it in the farming countryside, Eclectic - you should be around when the farmers have a slurry-spraying day. Now THAT'S niffy. You don't notice it after a while. It's all part of life's (very) rich pageant!
21 Oct, 2011
It's only pee, Eclectic, not the other stuff - sterile when it comes out, full of nitrogen, good stuff, specially on the compost heap.
21 Oct, 2011
It may not help but I successfully deterred rabbits excavating my tubs of bedding plants with dried chilli flakes ( ethnic section of supermarket is cheapest) maybe it would deter them fom their favorite spots.....
21 Oct, 2011
Pam I will store that info. for another time!
21 Oct, 2011
Gattina: My first job was steam cleaning tick infested chicken coops and lifting 100 lb bags of chicken feed on a farm. Slurry spraying? I live in a rural farming area and when that is done and the wind is blowing in the right direction ones first breath can be ones last. When I was young, after WWII chicken farming was big thing. Around where I live now ,mostly corn, some tobacco, and many farms are into raising alpacas, ostrich, bison in addition to cattle and pigs. Milk production is profitable here too. Talk about eclectic!
21 Oct, 2011
I can't say I get used used to the smell of slurry spraying.
Just depends how you look at it really - try saying Oo Ar, good healthy country smell. What's worse is the mess the tractors leave on the lane as they go to the fields. Car cleaning, anyone?
21 Oct, 2011
What a rich and exciting existence you have had, E.! My apologies for misjudging you. Your fastidiousness regarding a little natural liquid manure, under the circumstances, puzzles me. Let's get back to the question in hand - With all that excitement going on, did foxes ever dare to approach your chicken houses? Incidentally, OH has noticed our chicken-farming neighbour peeing against the walls of his chicken sheds: We wonder if he is regularly caught short or whether he instinctively knows what works where fox-control is concerned.
Steragram, yes, one does tend to adopt the "Ooh, AArr!" approach, if only in self defence. We get a bit of mud on our roads, but cow sheds tend to be sited away from the roads, so the muck from tractor wheels doesn't make it that far. I'd hate to live down wind of one, though, and there are long-lasting family vendettas raging about the pong ruining the atmosphere of nearby holiday homes. Apart from that, waddya mean "Car cleaning"? you'd be hard put to guess the colour of any car round here, much less be able to read the number plate. Did you know that it's illegal in Italy for anyone to wash their car in the street?
21 Oct, 2011
To Spartan; you're probably wondering why we're all chatting off subject here, and I'd like to explain that, the longer you take to make a response, the more this thread will diverge and expand...
21 Oct, 2011
You're absolutely right, Bamboo, but isn't that a lot of the fun in a site like this? You can learn so much from the divergences and personal, incidental experiences. Back to the original subject - we used to have a colony of foxes in our last UK home, and thought they were charming and amusing, but then they did no damage to our lawns or flowerbeds. Another neighbour DID have a dog, who thought there was nothing half as much fun as playing with the cubs, until it contracted mange from them. It is the cruellest and most appalling disease you can imagine, so a dog probably isn't the best solution.
Seriously, as strange and possibly distasteful as it may sound, Bamboo's original suggestion probably has as much validity as anything else, and it has the advantage of being free! Good luck, Peter and Sheila.
21 Oct, 2011
Yea, I think these threads are fun - but Spartan is probably wondering what the heck is going on!
21 Oct, 2011
true Bamboo-- but it is fun-- reminded me of when we first moved here what we didn't know was that the farm beyond the dairy farm was a pig farm now That did whiff when they cleaned them out!!
22 Oct, 2011
Blimey, I wouldn't call that fun - being near a pig farm isn't funny when the wind's in the wrong direction...
22 Oct, 2011
well no!-- thankfully they retired and moved away.....its horses now much better
22 Oct, 2011
And better for the roses, too?
22 Oct, 2011
and the rhubarb!
and I like horses but I like pigs very much too but its a shame about the BO !
22 Oct, 2011
Gattina, I sorted the car cleaning problem - got rid of the dark green on and bought a dust coloured one. Haven't cleaned it for weeks!
28 Oct, 2011
Do you know, I never know for sure when you lot are joking! Seems like a good idea to me, Steragram. :-)
29 Oct, 2011
Well, Gattina, I'm not joking when I tell you that I have had the same car since 1994 (its on its last legs, frankly), its white, and the last time it was cleaned was years ago - all I ever do is clean the windows and the number plate and mirrors. Occasionally! Mind you, it is full of gardening tools, compost etc, and is really only a motorised wheelbarrow... But its one of the reasons I love having an old car, no need to make it look smart.
29 Oct, 2011
Ours is a very battered, scraped, scruffy old Ford, Bamboo, - full of bits of garden twine, bags full of rubbish, bottles of two-stroke fuel mix, a real farmers' car! I encountered a deer leaping into my path one misty autumn morning, managed to miss it, but in swerving, ended up in a ditch. Broken and scraped all sorts. The man at the garage took one look, said "It's safe to drive. Wait until the spring before you bother to patch it up or clean it - there'll be lots more accidents and mud before then. Bring it back in April!" Our daughter despairs of us and makes us park in the next street when we go to see her.
29 Oct, 2011
Ha ha - I had an even older, nastier looking car before when my kids were at school, it was a Q reg black Vauxhall Chevette estate, pig to drive, the clutch was dreadful, but my youngest son used to make me park round the corner if ever I collected him from school - or plead with me not to come anywhere near the school. What nonsense - he's still what I'd call status conscious now, dunno where he got that from, none of the rest of us is.
29 Oct, 2011
Well Gattina, I didn't change the car because of its colour - it had reached the stage where it was as cheap to replace it as to mend it. The dust colour was a bonus.
Kids are so easily embarrassed by their parents aren't they? I know I was.
31 Oct, 2011
I think the time to change our car will be when the weight of solidified mud and manure and crusted salt is about to knacker the suspension. Yes, it's very entertaining embarrassing one's children isn't it? And so easy, too. My daughter stopped taking me to nightclubs when I danced on the tables. It wasn't my dancing that was so bad, it was just not being able to climb down afterwards! ;o))
1 Nov, 2011
I've come to the conclusion that part of the role of being a parent is actually to be embarrassing - we're not really, of course, it's just that their egos are still so large they can't take any reflected 'embarrassing' behaviour on our part - and for embarrassing, read almost everything in front of other people apart from breathing....
1 Nov, 2011
Oh Bamboo, you are SO right. I'm so glad I'm not the only one that feels that way.
1 Nov, 2011
Right on the nail again Bamboo. But we develop thick skins don't we?
Gattina, I actually did clean the car today, and guess what - it wasn't dust coloured at all but a rahter nice greeish grey. It won't stay like that by the time I've driven it down the lane tonight. :((
1 Nov, 2011
Actually, it can be quite fun to watch their embarrassment, but not so much fun hearing them going on and on and on about it. I think its a bit cheeky that they were allowed to say anything they wanted when they were older teenagers, but I was not supposed to say and do lots of things - tough, I said 'em anyway... What I really found irritating was being patronised by my youngest son, as if I'd lost my marbles or spent my life in some sort of Victorian novel or in the dark ages, knowing little of the world and without a brain, despite evidence to the contrary. He's better now, but it did bring out the worst in me in terms of being embarrassing quite deliberately, lol!
1 Nov, 2011
Reminds me of the lad who confessed that in his teens he thought his parents were really ignorant and when he reached his twenties he was amazed how much they had learned in such a short time...
3 Nov, 2011
Many thanks to all for the advice
Best wishes
3 Nov, 2011
Ten out of ten, Spartan, if you actually read all this thread... afraid it got hijacked as a place to chat, given no response from you earlier on, lol! I did try to warn you on 21st October above...
3 Nov, 2011
Well, Peter and Sheila, first let me correct your false impression - we are not a team as such, but a motley collection of members of the public who happen to really like gardening. Some, like myself, are professionals, designers, work in garden centres, or are jobbing gardeners, but in the main, the site consists of amateur gardeners.
Now to your problem - there is no easy solution, as you've discovered already, other than getting a dog which might work. But the latest info on here from someone else with a fox problem is, and please don't be offended by this, I'm not making it up, for the man of the house to pee, or collect and spread, his own urine in the areas which are problematic. This will not cause your lawn any harm (you'll probably find it gets lusher and greener and taller in the areas you do this because of the high nitrogen content in urine) and is certainly worth a try. There used to be something called Renardine you could buy (with difficulty, but you could track it down) to use to deter foxes - however, having used it myself 20 years ago, frankly, in the average sized garden, it has the unfortunate side effect of keeping you out as well, its smell being all pervading and absolutely rank. Sorry I can't offer any real solution.
19 Oct, 2011