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How to Attract Foxes to Your Garden (Carefully)

Foxes come for cover, quiet and easy food. How to make a garden welcoming without creating a tame fox — and why feeding is the part to get right.

By Zakaria 4 min read Save to Pinterest — opens Pinterest in a new tab
A red fox crossing a suburban back lawn nose-down, past bird feeders and a fence
Photo: M J Richardson, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
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Foxes are already in most suburbs. What decides whether one uses your garden is not food — it is cover and quiet, plus a route in. And the part worth thinking hardest about is feeding, because that is where attracting a fox goes wrong.

What a fox actually wants

What draws a fox to a garden
DrawWeightHow to provide it
Undisturbed daytime coverVery highBrush pile, log stack, rough corner behind a shed
QuietVery highKeep the corner out of daily traffic; dogs elsewhere
A through routeHigh4–5 in gap at the base of a fence
Small mammalsHighLong grass, no rodenticide
EarthwormsHigh, underratedUntreated lawn, damp evenings
Windfall fruitSeasonal, strongLeave apples and plums where they fall
WaterModerate, genuinely usefulShallow dish, quiet spot, kept clean
Put-out foodEffective, and the risky oneSee below

Earthworms are the surprise. A suburban fox spends a lot of damp evenings working a lawn for them, and a lawn treated with insecticide or drenched in weed-and-feed is worth much less to it than a scruffy one.

The feeding question

This is where good intentions cause harm, so it is worth being blunt.

A fox that learns people mean food stops being wary. It approaches strangers, sits on doorsteps, follows children carrying sandwiches — and that is the fox that gets reported, trapped or shot. The kindest thing you can do for a fox you enjoy watching is to keep it slightly afraid of you.

Never hand-feed, and never at the back door

Hand-feeding creates a habituated animal in days. Feeding in the same spot at the same time each evening does the same thing more slowly. Neither is a favour to the fox.

If you feed at all:

  • Small amounts, scattered rather than in a bowl
  • Irregular times, and away from the house
  • Suitable: cooked or raw meat, tinned dog food, cheese, unsalted peanuts, fruit
  • Not suitable: chocolate, onion, grapes and raisins, heavily salted or spiced food, cooked bones
  • Stop entirely if the fox starts waiting for you, approaching, or showing no fear

Water is different. A shallow dish of clean water in a quiet spot is useful in dry spells and invaluable in freezing weather, and it creates none of these problems.

Cover, in practice

  • A brush pile — larger branches criss-crossed at the base, prunings piled on top, against a hedge or fence line.
  • A log stack left to rot down, which also feeds beetles and fungi.
  • Rough grass left unmown in a corner.
  • The space behind a shed or under a raised deck — foxes will use these readily, and a vixen may choose one as an earth in spring.

If a vixen dens under your shed

Cubs are usually above ground by late spring and the family moves on by midsummer. Blocking an active earth traps cubs inside. The straightforward answer is to wait, then seal the space in autumn once it is definitely empty.

Secure this first

Do this before you make the garden welcoming, not after:

  • Poultry and rabbits: a genuinely fox-proof run — weldmesh rather than chicken wire, with a buried or ground-level wire apron, and closed every evening without fail. A fox will dig, and it will test a latch.
  • Bins: rigid latching lids.
  • Pet food: never left outside overnight.

A fox that cannot reach your animals is a pleasure to have. One that can is a disaster you invited.

Two things you may meet

Mange. Patchy fur, a thin ratty tail, bare skin. It is sarcoptic mange, it is contagious to dogs, and it kills the fox if untreated. Do not self-treat — contact a local wildlife rescue or fox charity, several of which supply treatment to give in food and know the dose.

Screaming at night. The vixen’s mating call, mostly December to February. It sounds like someone in distress, it is entirely normal, and it stops after a few weeks.

Step by step

Time
P60D
Cost
$0
You need
Brush, logs and prunings for cover
Tools
Trail camera, if you want to know what visits

  1. Leave a wild, undisturbed corner

    Foxes want cover and quiet more than they want food. A patch of rough grass, a brush pile, a log stack or an overgrown corner behind a shed gives them somewhere to lie up during the day. Site it away from the parts of the garden you use, because disturbance is what keeps foxes moving on.

  2. Give them a way in and through

    A gap of about four to five inches at the base of a fence lets a fox move along its normal route without forcing it through open ground. Foxes follow habitual paths across several gardens, so a connected route matters more than any single feature of yours.

  3. Let the garden support their actual food

    A fox's diet is mostly small mammals, earthworms, beetles and windfall fruit. Long grass supports voles and mice, an untreated lawn produces earthworms on damp nights, and a fruit tree left to drop feeds them in autumn. Stop using rodenticide entirely — a poisoned rodent kills the fox that eats it.

  4. Put out water rather than food

    A shallow dish of clean water in a quiet spot is genuinely useful, especially in dry spells and in freezing weather, and it creates none of the problems that feeding does. Refresh it regularly and site it where you can watch it from indoors.

  5. If you feed at all, do it sparingly and unpredictably

    Small amounts, scattered rather than in a bowl, at irregular times, never by hand and never at the back door. The goal is a fox that keeps its wariness of people. Cooked or raw meat, tinned dog food, cheese and unsalted peanuts are all suitable; chocolate, onion, grapes and heavily salted food are not.

  6. Secure everything else first

    Chickens, ducks and rabbits need a genuinely fox-proof run with a buried or aproned wire skirt, closed every evening. Bins need latching lids. Doing this before you encourage foxes is what keeps a welcome fox from becoming a problem one.

Common questions

How do I attract foxes to my garden?

Provide cover and quiet first — a brush pile, a log stack, rough grass or an undisturbed corner behind a shed — and leave a gap of four to five inches at the base of a fence so a fox can follow its usual route through. Let long grass support voles and mice, keep the lawn untreated so earthworms come up on damp nights, and leave windfall fruit. Put out clean water rather than food. Foxes are already in most suburbs; what they respond to is somewhere undisturbed to be.

Should you feed foxes?

Sparingly if at all, and never by hand. A fox that learns to associate people with food loses its wariness, approaches strangers, and becomes the fox somebody complains about — and habituated foxes are the ones that end up killed. If you do feed, scatter small amounts at irregular times away from the house rather than putting a bowl in the same place every evening. Water is the genuinely helpful thing to put out, and it creates none of these problems.

What do foxes eat?

Red foxes are omnivores with a varied diet: small mammals such as voles, mice and rats, earthworms taken from lawns on damp nights, beetles and other insects, birds and eggs where they can get them, and a great deal of fruit in late summer and autumn — blackberries, windfall apples and plums. In towns they also scavenge. Earthworms in particular make up far more of a suburban fox's diet than people expect.

Are foxes dangerous to pets or children?

Attacks on people are very rare and foxes are not generally aggressive, but a fox will take poultry, rabbits and guinea pigs kept outside, and that is a real and common loss. Cats are rarely at risk as adults, and dogs almost never. The sensible order is to make hutches and runs genuinely fox-proof first, then decide how welcoming to be — a fox that cannot get at your animals is easy to enjoy.

What does it mean if a fox looks mangy?

Patchy fur, a thin ratty tail and visible skin usually means sarcoptic mange, a mite infestation that is common, contagious to dogs and fatal to the fox if untreated. Do not try to treat it yourself with over-the-counter remedies. Contact a local wildlife rescue or fox charity — several will supply treatment that can be given in food, and they know the dose. Keep dogs away from an affected animal and its resting spots.

How do I stop a fox digging or fouling the lawn?

Digging is usually a fox after chafer grubs or leatherjackets, so the lawn problem is really a grub problem — treat that and the digging stops. Scat left on a lawn or a molehill is territorial marking, and removing it promptly with a scoop and rinsing the spot reduces repeat marking. Keep bins latched and do not leave pet food out, since a fox with no reason to linger passes through rather than settling.

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