Fox Yards, Showing Detail of Outer Fence.
As there is considerable difference in the disposition of individuals this should also be kept in mind and those animals showing the least aversion to man should be selected, providing, of course, that they are prolific and otherwise perfect.
A party in Ohio who has been raising foxes for some time writes as follows:
Two years ago I added foxes to my game preserve and last spring my red gave birth to five young foxes. My black male fox got to the young and killed the three males. I now have three cross foxes, one black and four red. I expect to have a big increase in the spring. Should I get a lot of black pups next spring I will surely do well with my foxes.
I find that foxes are not strictly carnivorous (flesh eating) animals. I feed them stale bread, milk and any kind of a dead fowl, rats, mice, stale meats, muskrat, coon or any other carcass. I aim to give them all they will eat, yet I often have thought that I feed them too much at one time and not enough at other times.
I think foxes should be fed morning and evening only about what they will eat. They should be given fresh water twice a day during the summer months and the water should not be given them in a shallow vessel, nothing lower than an ordinary bucket. They are sure to foul the water if they can get over or in it.
Allow me to suggest to any one who contemplates raising foxes that one of the essential things to do is to first build a kennel in such a way that they will not gnaw or dig out. A safe fox pen can be built by putting a stone wall or concrete two feet down, setting posts first, then build wall around posts. Don't use any netting over two-inch mesh and the poultry netting should be made of No. 17 wire. Fox will tear the ordinary two-inch poultry netting as fast as you can put it on.
My kennel is 50 feet by 25 feet and 7 feet high, covered over the top with ordinary poultry netting. One of the essential things to do after kennel is built is to see that it is properly underdrained and to see that plenty of dry leaves are put in kennel. Straw will do if leaves cannot be gotten. A mound of earth would be an excellent thing in each apartment of your kennels. Foxes are great to be constantly digging in the ground. Keep plenty of boxes in your kennel with a nice smooth hole in each box, as a rough hole destroys their fur.
Yards of a Successful Maine Fox Farm.