Some odd fox happenings here at home. At the beginning of the week I found a juvenile dead out by the feeding stating across my front yard. No apparent injuries or mange. Best I can figure the poor thing either got hit by a car and made his way back to where he felt safe and died, or a coyote encounter. My neighbor had seen one in my yard that day so it's possible the fox was on the loosing end of a territorial dispute. One quick grab and shake and the fox would be dead of a broken neck within seconds with very little wounds. The coyote, defending the territory and not hunting, would leave it there as opposed to hauling it off to eat.
Some better luck for one of my other resident foxes. A couple weeks ago I had seen her hanging around near some of my shrubs. She does that quite regularly and likes to lay in the sun by them. I happened to have my binoculars so I took a closer look and to my horror I noticed she obviously had the beginning of mange on her legs! So I put a plan in motion to help her out before it became bad enough to affect her health.
With the help of a supply of frozen mice, some ivermectin, and some patience, I decided to medicate her. I injected a mouse with the ivermectin and put it out near one of her "regular" spots.
Contrary to my usual luck, she showed up shortly after I put the first mouse out there! I was all excited until I watched her just sitting there next to the damn thing, scratching like crazy, ignoring it! (the little white thing on the mulch).
A couple minutes later though, and success! She saw it and gobbled it right down! What a relief!
Hooray!! Treatment number one down, she looked over as if to say thanks for the snack and ambled off down the driveway again. Hopefully the next few treatments will go as well. She needs to get some every 10 days or so for about 4 treatments, but luckily I caught it early enough that just that one dose should make a big difference.
This little guy was not so happy about the visit! He opted to rely on the protection atop St. Francis there outside my front door to keep him safe while he watched, in disgust I'm sure, as the fox devoured a distant cousin....LOL
I hope you are able to give her a few more treatments- she sure is beautiful :)
ReplyDeleteI have a ton of his distant cousins here in my flower gardens! Although I did find three huge snake skins, so perhaps the population will begin to diminish before we move!...:)JP
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