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Foxes and Myxomatosis in Kent

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 September 2009

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We shot or otherwise took over 100 foxes in this area during the spring. I opened a great many of them and, apart from a few odd ones, the diet appeared to have gone over to the same as the badger, omnivorous. There is no doubt that foxes are eating quite a lot of vegetable matter where the rabbits have disappeared due to disease, but I have never seen better and healthier foxes than of late, with two exceptions, which, of course, one normally expects, for there are always odd wasters in all species of animals and birds. Those which had full stomachs have invariably contained poultry and/or game, and once a coot, but by far the greater number had empty stomachs with intestines usually full of faeces, mostly vegetable matter. From this I deduce that their varied diet goes through them quickly but is ample to keep them in first-class order. The one exceptional stomach, of a vixen, was full of grass! There has been no case of malnutrition or food-crazy foxes, they are behaving quite normally.

Type
British Mammals
Copyright
Copyright © Fauna and Flora International 1955