Foxes and cats ???

[danacat]

I know this has been discussed before on the forum, so I do apologize for bringing it up again…but:

Has anyone ever actually witnessed a well fed country fox (not a hungry urban fox) attack and kill a barn cat or house cat?

I’m not looking for cat vs fox internet horror stories, but an actual witnessing of an altercation that resulted in country fox killing and having a cat for dinner.

I hope no one HAS seen this - awful for sure! - but just asking because my half feral barn cats who I adore, and my indoor cats who only go outside during the day are sometimes in the company of a fox who lives somewhere on my farm.

By the time I see them together, cats (or singular cat) and fox are just sitting there together - both seemingly neutral but curious.

Since I intervene of course (my mere presence sends foxy on his/her way) I never get to see what would have happened had I not been there.

I also have not been able to see how the encounter started. Did fox sneak up on cats? Did fox ‘try’? Did cats fight back? Or is everybody best of friends? I just don’t know…

…but I am worried because one cat who is still fairly young and not very large (teenager) seems to be particularly enamored with foxy - or vice versa. Cat is orange (not dinner colored) and is very fiesty/smart - but size might matter.

Thoughts from anyone with cat/fox experience on a very rural farm?

[Pep_n_Ann]

No experience with foxes, but birds of prey, owls, hawks, ect. will take out a cat given the chance.

[Nootka]

I’ve witnessed a fox chase a cat. It wasn’t a good kind of chase either. Fox ran into the barn and saw “it wasn’t in the wild” anymore and ran out.

[shiloh]

My experience has always been that most foxes will not bother cats. At my last property we had a LOT of foxes and all but one left the cats alone. Whenever I heard him (he had a distinctive voice) I was always afraid he would make a meal of one of the outside gang as in the past he had eaten at least three cats that I know of. As far as seeing a fox actually attack a cat - no. Coyotes - yes. Owls and hawks - yes.

[Over_the_Hill]

I had a baby fox and barn cat who played together in the pasture almost every night. At sunup my cat would come back in through the gate and the fox would retreat to the den at the edge of the woods…rinse repeat until the foxes moved on.

[Big_Tag]

[QUOTE=Over the Hill;8957185]
I had a baby fox and barn cat who played together in the pasture almost every night. At sunup my cat would come back in through the gate and the fox would retreat to the den at the edge of the woods…rinse repeat until the foxes moved on.[/QUOTE]

This is my experience too. We had an admittedly large male cat who had a fox buddy all summer one year. It wasn’t a cub, though; probably a young adult. They would play a lot around dawn, and you could hear the fox yipping while he ran around with the cat. It was cute. The cat would sometimes get a little tired of the fox’s shenanigans I think, but he was clearly never afraid. More like “ok, I really don’t want to play with you for this long.”

The foxes around here are pretty small, not much bigger than your average housecat, and we have never had a lick of trouble with them.

[Jumperwannabe]

OP, a large savvy barn cat is a little different than a teenager. Not as strong or fast. We have fox in our neighborhood and the neighbors have an outdoor cat who is very savvy. My husband went outside to breakup a standoff between the cat and a fox. I wouldn’t trust a fox, especially going into winter when food is less plentiful.

[beowulf]

In my area, foxes eating cats are unheard of. Foxes as a whole are more opportunistic than outright carnivorous; as far as predators go, they are not very tenacious and rarely risk injuring themselves for a meal. For that reason alone their ‘menu’ is more in line with diminutive species: mice, voles, dim-witted birds, rats, etc.

A few years ago I saw a mother/kit pair many times, that would come up along the trail and watch us as we rode by. We had a fairly big feral cat colony (neighboring farm cast off, not our own: we TNR for a while) and they never seemed to bother the cats beyond the occasional squabble to get to the food we left out for the cats. They were more interested in the catfood than the cats themselves.

In most areas, fox are no bigger than the average house-cat. A fox might try to prey on young kittens but I do not think in my area it is very common at all.

[Justmyluck]

My one piece of advise is to make sure that your cats stay up to date on their rabies. Not one day of time lapse between vaccines.

[StarPattern]

I feel like a cat vs a fox would not be a good time for the cat. Unless, of course… said cat was some giant war-veteran tom cat that had seen things. Then maybe the playing field would be even.

I don’t think I’d even trust my dogs with a fox and my dogs are much bigger (one being 50# and the other pushing 90#). Foxes are smart and if they’re anything like coyotes, they’ll lure an unsuspecting dog out into a circle of certain death.

[beowulf]

[QUOTE=StarPattern;8958015]
I feel like a cat vs a fox would not be a good time for the cat. Unless, of course… said cat was some giant war-veteran tom cat that had seen things. Then maybe the playing field would be even.

I don’t think I’d even trust my dogs with a fox and my dogs are much bigger (one being 50# and the other pushing 90#). Foxes are smart and if they’re anything like coyotes, they’ll lure an unsuspecting dog out into a circle of certain death.[/QUOTE]

foxes are not anything like coyotes.

[yellowbritches]

[QUOTE=beowulf;8958020]
foxes are not anything like coyotes.[/QUOTE]
Agreed. I don’t generally worry about foxes unless I have kittens around (which I haven’t had in years, and they always managed to make it to adulthood just fine). They aren’t terribly big, and aren’t really aggressive. They want quick and easy. Tangling with my 15lb brute of an orange bowling ball is NOT going to be quick and easy, and my dogs, even my small dog, probably every less so.

Coyotes send shivers down my spine and I am very wary of them. My big dog will turn around and go back to the house if we go out for a walk in the dark and she hears them. They are scary.

[danacat]

[QUOTE=yellowbritches;8958567]
Coyotes send shivers down my spine and I am very wary of them. They are scary.[/QUOTE]

Yes they are! Early in the summer a lone coyote was sitting atop a hill in one of my pastures. Seemed to be ‘casing’ the farm. I ran out of the house banging pots and pans and yelling like a banshee and ‘hazed’ the coyote well into the woods. Haven’t seen the coyote since but I’m always ready to run them off.

But it was scary being alone in the woods with pots and pans and a coyote nearby. I’m sure it had friends!

It’s said that if you have foxes around it’s a good sign - they and their kits are dinner for coyotes. Ergo: foxes = no coyotes. But I can’t imagine this is absolutely true.

[WNT]

A fox tried to sneak up and declare her possession of the barnyard from the barn cat. Neither was very big, but the cat was smaller and she walloped that fox, sending her packing. They worked out turf appropriation, with the cat maintaining control of the barn, machine shed, and small outdoor. The fox had the adjacent woods, pastures, and large outdoor. I never saw or heard another altercation between them.

[beowulf]

[QUOTE=danacat;8958860]
Yes they are! Early in the summer a lone coyote was sitting atop a hill in one of my pastures. Seemed to be ‘casing’ the farm. I ran out of the house banging pots and pans and yelling like a banshee and ‘hazed’ the coyote well into the woods. Haven’t seen the coyote since but I’m always ready to run them off.

But it was scary being alone in the woods with pots and pans and a coyote nearby. I’m sure it had friends!

It’s said that if you have foxes around it’s a good sign - they and their kits are dinner for coyotes. Ergo: foxes = no coyotes. But I can’t imagine this is absolutely true.[/QUOTE]

I don’t think it’s necessarily true. Coyotes don’t go out of their way to eat fox, and they generally occupy different territories. I am sure there have been through the course of time instances where a coyote has eaten a fox but I imagine it must have been lacking other resources first.

The coyotes-luring-unsuspecting-dogs-out, to my knowledge, has never been scientifically documented. I have a healthy eastern coyote population near my horse, and many a time had my GSD interact with the coyote pups in the corn field and on occasion, a female that was in heat - yes, he was very UTD on rabies Anyway, I think it’s exaggerated and partially a wives’ tale, as many canine biologists I have spoken with have had their reservations about it truly being a frequent hunting tactic.

[Big_Tag]

[QUOTE=StarPattern;8958015]
I feel like a cat vs a fox would not be a good time for the cat. Unless, of course… said cat was some giant war-veteran tom cat that had seen things. Then maybe the playing field would be even.

I don’t think I’d even trust my dogs with a fox and my dogs are much bigger (one being 50# and the other pushing 90#). Foxes are smart and if they’re anything like coyotes, they’ll lure an unsuspecting dog out into a circle of certain death.[/QUOTE]

Yeah this isn’t true at all. A fox isn’t luring a dog into any kind of “circle of certain death” unless, say, a rabid fox bites your dog and your dog isn’t vaccinated. A 50lb dog outweighs a fox by at LEAST 50%. A 50lb dog could probably tear a fox apart, if it could catch it because they ARE pretty crafty.

[yellowbritches]

[QUOTE=danacat;8958860]

It’s said that if you have foxes around it’s a good sign - they and their kits are dinner for coyotes. Ergo: foxes = no coyotes. But I can’t imagine this is absolutely true.[/QUOTE]
Agreed.Which is why I was THRILLED this summer to see a fox, and then start hearing them in the evening, as it had been nothing but hearing and seeing coyotes since I moved in almost three years ago. I’ve since heard coyotes again, but I’m also hearing the fox. For the most part, I think the coyotes are a little bit further away, probably a bit closer to the denser woods on the mountain. I think the fox’ den may be in the back of my pasture

[WildandWickedWarmblo]

Foxes have never bothered cats, although I’ve taken all barn cats into the house because the coyotes will eat cats, foxes, small dogs and anything else coyotes can kill and swallow.

I agree with others that you should give your cats a rabies shot yearly. Also horses and dogs and anything outside where foxes and raccoons live.

[apcohrs]

[QUOTE=beowulf;8959144]
I don’t think it’s necessarily true. Coyotes don’t go out of their way to eat fox, and they generally occupy different territories. I am sure there have been through the course of time instances where a coyote has eaten a fox but I imagine it must have been lacking other resources first.

The coyotes-luring-unsuspecting-dogs-out, to my knowledge, has never been scientifically documented. I have a healthy eastern coyote population near my horse, and many a time had my GSD interact with the coyote pups in the corn field and on occasion, a female that was in heat - yes, he was very UTD on rabies Anyway, I think it’s exaggerated and partially a wives’ tale, as many canine biologists I have spoken with have had their reservations about it truly being a frequent hunting tactic.[/QUOTE]

It appears to be true. Coyotes do eat foxes and will eliminate fox populations where the two species overlap.

https://emammal.wordpress.com/2013/11/30/coyotes-and-intraguild-predation/

[Rackonteur]

I have only seen one fox so far in my life. He/she was a city fox and was at least twice as big as any cat I have ever seen (and I have seen MANY of those!).