Our recent Hedgehog feeding turned up a surprise this evening. Just an hour after the Hedgehog had been seen chowing down at 9pm as per usual, a rather mangy looking Fox turned up! That was rather a shock, though we had suspected a Fox uses the garden since we'd seen what I was fairly sure were Fox paw-prints in the snow. Actually that paw-print post is one of the most popular on this blog with lots of incoming search hits whenever it snows somewhere in the UK, so I assume that plenty of people have foxes in their garden that only become apparent when the white stuff betrays their presence.
You can see in the rather poor photo that it's lacking fur on its rear and the base of the tail (and an extremely long tail it is) and the rear legs look a bit shaky too. I looked up "Fox mange" and apparently it is fairly classic for this parasitic infection to begin around that area, however moulting foxes in the Spring can be confused as having mange. I'm really not sure which would be the case here. Would anybody out there care to venture an opinion?
Hi, I can see that this is an old post but in case anyone’s interested – that is definitely mange. The reddish crusty skin is a sure sign. Some foxes recover naturally but otherwise they can be treated with ivermectin in food (although this isn’t an option for lacating vixens). It is very difficult with a fox who isn’t a regular visitor though.
Great blog – loved the spider shots! 🙂
Adele – thanks for sharing your expertise on foxes. Much appreciated.