As far as I know there was no male around last year and no kits.  There could have been and I didn't notice but she never brought any other foxes around.  This year was the first year that when I would throw her a piece of chicken that she would run off with it instead of eating it.  

I have confirmed there is a 7th fox.  Early in the evening Fred, the male, was in the lower terrace and started barking but he was looking away from me at something else.  He only barks if there is danger for the kits.  A couple times the female would again run to the terrace wall to look at something.  Then shortly after this image was taken I turned to walk up to the house and saw a full sized fox coming through the yard.  I looked back and with my better lighting tonight I could still clearly see all 6 foxes.  The 3 foxes on the top left are looking towards the house which is where the other fox was cutting through.  




One can learn a great deal about group safety/security by watching these foxes.  Fred often sits way back in the shadows and near the tree line so nothing can sneak up on him and he functions as overwatch for the whole group.  He literally and figuratively has their six.  Then each member is responsible to be observant.  In the pic above 4 foxes are watching me go to the house and the other fox but one fox watching something else.  The pic below there are 3 foxes keeping an eye on me while they let the other 3 get the food.  Their heads and ears are always on a swivel.  

Fred is in the shadows, his eyes are glowing and the white patch on his neck is visible.  The kit in the top right of the picture is the runt of the litter.  It is the one that has always been more skittish than the others, which means it gets less food.  I try to toss it extra food when I can but the others are so aggressive that it often misses out.  I have videos of them eating that I will get posted at some point.


 

No rabies yet.  A friend of mine suggested trapping them and getting them vaccinated.  That would be very difficult.  Plus the vaccine requires a couple doses and then every 1 to 3 years after that.  I doubt they would stick around if they got trapped once.  If there was an oral vaccine in pill form I could stick that into the hotdog pieces and get them taken care of no problem.

I'm not sure.  The friend that recommended it is a bit unorthidox about things.

However I just found this PubMed article that says they have tested bait delivery for oral rabies vaccines for gray foxes!  It doesn't say much but apparently oral vaccines exist.  Now to figure out if they are available or just in a testing phase.

Bait delivery for oral rabies vaccine to gray foxes  https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11085437/

The fox story just got a little more interesting.  I've already confirmed there were 7 foxes after only seeing 6 for months but now it appears their maybe 5 kits or a kit from another fox has found its way to my yard.  Back to potato quality pictures as I was not planning on recording anything tonight.  I'm not sure what this means. It never looked like she was nursing 5.  Apparently the cheapest hotdogs that Kroger sells are super foods for gray foxes.

As I was tossing out food I noticed the mom near me like she always is but then the other 5 were mixing it up and chasing after the food.  Fred doesn't mix it up or get distracted chasing food.  Fred sits in the back like I showed in the previous pictures.  Then I noticed all 5 foxes going for the food were about the same size.  




Mom for size reference with the kits.




The first photo ever of all 7 foxes hanging out together.

Pic from tonight.  Everyone get lined up for the group photo.  Fiona is in front and Fred is in the back.  The fox on the left has a broken white line across his chest the same as Fred.  The other 4 have solid lines.  Not sure if that is relevant or applies to age or not.  It makes me think he is the 7th fox that just joined in.  I'm trying to figure out how to tell all of them apart, it is very difficult.  





A behind the scenes look at the set.




Taking a break between scenes.




Foxes filtering in and getting in place for the show to start.

Just got back from hanging out with the foxes tonight.  

Nice, we had a couple foxes a few years ago that hung out in my hay barn. Noticed some chicken bone and then they were gone neighbor must’ve took them out.

You can get rabies vaccination from tractor supply I think, if not you can get them online. The vax is subq so easy to administer through a live trap...a theory that isn’t tested is that the vaccine could be lifelong.

I have other project updates to post but just haven't done it yet.  But the foxes and other animals are a highlight of the day as one never knows what to expect.

Here is something that happened earlier this year.  I went to get some cat food for the foxes and noticed something odd about the bag.




I knew what it was and had the camera ready.

I've encountered him several times, once was in a live trap.  It also explains why all my mouse traps were tripped and moved around the house, he was eating the peanut butter.  Now I just put some food on the ground for him so he doesn't tear my bags open.  

Early July, during a 2 week dry period, I noticed a nasty smell coming from the creek.  As I got closer it smelled like a porta-potty, there was a gray and brown film on it, and the fish were either dead or gasping for air.  Previously the creek would smell like fabric softener and occasionally get a mild funk to it.  I figured a house had their washing machine dumping to a line outside that made its way to the creek.  However, this time it was an obvious human waste smell.









I followed the creek up and found this.  A storm drain line dumping obvious gray water into the creek.  I contacted the city water department about it and at first the clerk at the window tried to blow me off about their sewer lines possibly leaking.   I had anticipated a lack of concern and took video and pictures with me.  The 65 year old office clerk said she would look into it and didn't even ask to see the pictures. There were other customers in the lobby waiting to speak to someone so I decided escalate things a bit by saying loud enough for everyone to hear "I believe your sewer line is leaking into the spring, killing the fish, and I have pictures showing this.".  She decided to call an actual person that works on the lines and told them about the problem.  At that point they were interested in the pictures.




The guy that came out to investigate was very familiar with that area and said it is full of problems, has collapsed lines, and the city doesn't want to spend the money to fix things properly.  Once he came out and saw what was flowing into the creek it was all hands on deck to figure out the source.  It took them a couple days to find and fix the problem as it turned out to be a sewer line on a side road going up the hill had a leak in it and that was flowing into the storm sewer.

I checked culvert the other day and it is now 100% dry.  The weather is dry again and creek very low but no sewer smell or brown film on the water.

Thank you!

Time for an update on growing elephant ears.  

Last fall after cutting off all the leaves I decided to store the bulbs 2 ways.  One is soil under grow lights and one in dry storage.

The plants had 42" leaves by the time frost hit.



I cut off all the leaves and dug up the bulbs



I put one into dry storage



The other under grow lights with my other plants to over winter.




In May this is what they looked like.






I removed all the small bulbs from they dry storage plant and planted just the main bulb.






The plant that I over wintered had a massive tangled root ball and no way to separate the small bulbs and plants.




Both plants planted.  The dry storage bulb is in the red circle area.  Just to top of the brown tip can be seen.



Day 25 after planting the dry storage bulb is starting to shoot up.




Day 35 later the dry storage bulb is starting to take off.




Day 42




Day 48




Day 75




Day 91 the elephant ears on the dry storage plant are now bigger than the over wintered plant, most likely due to the fact I was able to remove the small bulbs and it is not competing for resources with a bunch of small plants. The over wintered plant has a lot more leaves due to the other small bulbs.  If you want giant leaves then make sure to dry store bulbs and remove the smaller divisions.

I was pissed as the urine smell was noticeable 100ft away from the creek.  The city got lucky it was after hours and the beginning of a holiday weekend.  It gave me time to calm down and collect my thoughts.

There are 4 houses that back up to the creek and the creek is maybe 2 feet lower than their back yards.  All sorts of random garbage ends up in the creek, not sure if it is any of the houses throwing stuff in or if it is people that pull up to an area with no houses and throw stuff in.  Having the small waterfall and the bridge will cause a lot of the trash to get stuck and I have to clear it out.  I'm not an environmentalist by any stretch of the imagination but people intentionally creating a mess with their waste does aggravate me.  Growing up on a farm I was raised to respect the land and nature because that is what provides for us.  

Here is the response from the rabies management coordinator at the USDA.  I've also been in contact with a wild rehabilitator but she has not be able to get any answers from the state.
------------

Thank you for your interest in oral rabies vaccination (ORV) and your inquiry regarding availability of oral rabies vaccine (ORV) baits.  Unfortunately at this time, ORV baits are not available for purchase or use by the public.

 
USDA Wildlife Services does not have the regulatory authority to allow the public to purchase or distribute baits for the currently licensed RABORAL V-RG product. The USDA, APHIS, Center for Veterinary Biologics is the agency with regulatory responsibility for animal vaccines. The regulatory license for use of the current oral rabies vaccine is for coordinated campaigns conducted by county, state, or federal governments targeting raccoons, coyotes and gray foxes. The vaccine contains no genetic material capable of causing rabies; however, there are other safety concerns due to a slight risk of non-rabies infection from direct handling of the baits without latex gloves or the proper protection. ORV strategies are designed for treatment over large landscapes targeting free-ranging populations to prevent the spread of rabies and not, at this time, to try to vaccinate a few specific animals. As you may be aware, WS has been working cooperatively with others agencies in 16 eastern states to use ORV in strategic areas to stop the westward spread of raccoon rabies and in Texas targeting rabies in coyotes and foxes. The vaccine-baits have proven safe in more than 60 species.

 
The ORV baits are intended for consumption by raccoons, coyotes and gray fox.  However, the most effective actions that you can take to protect your family, pets and domestic livestock from rabies is to vaccinate your domestic animals and to appreciate wildlife from a healthy distance.  If you observe a sick or strange-acting wild animal, it is best to contact local authorities for assistance.


Thank you again for your interest in rabies, rabies management and our program. You can find more information at: https://www.aphis.usda.gov/aphis/ourfocus/wildlifedamage/programs/nrmp

Yeah, I need to find someone in the state that has a relationship with them.  It says county level but I'm not sure what agency at the county level would work directly with them on that.  I do live in a county that is flagged as having a high level rabies in skunks.  I also have pictures of skunks in my back yard next to fox.  I think I can make a pretty good case, I just need to figure out who to talk to.

Picture of all 7 from last night.  I just brought out a single portable light source, not my pair of photography lights, which is why the picture has long shadows.

Rented this over the weekend to do some work on the creek bed.  The creek has been cutting into the bank and causing some major erosion below the bridge.  Part of the issue was the neighboring property had filled in their lot to level it off many years ago and silt had worked its way into the creek which pushed the channel away from the bedrock side of the creek to the dirt side.  








This was as far back as I was able to go.  The bedrock ended and the end of the dirt on the left and the creek was a 3ft deep hole after that.  To the left of the excavator it quickly dropped.  In the picture you can see the left side of excavator was already sinking in and I had to dump the mud and rock to the left over the tracks which you aren't supposed to do even on level ground.  It kept things interesting.  At that point I started clean up what was in front of the excavator and slowly worked my way backwards to clear it out like the picture above shows.    





The excavator gives a good frame of reference for how much sediment had gotten into the creek from the hill on the right.  All of that was removed and deposited on the left.




Before: The side was about one rock higher than the water level.



After: The side is about 3 feet high now.





At the dam/waterfall area the heavy rains the last 5 years caused some of the stone to get washed downstream.  That caused the water to redirect sideways which ate away at the bank and under a large tree.  The root structure lifted up and is visible on the far side of the creek.





Debris has been removed.






The most interesting find in that part of the creek were several intact milk bottles and several other old bottles.  The whole creek is filled with bottles.

Another project I've been working on is moving the second part of the original flower beds about 25 feet.  I did the first half last year and the additional flat ground it created has been great.  

Starting at the red line all the plants were dug up and moved to the right of the yellow line.  




After the plants were gone the next step was digging up the old rock wall and moving it.  





That includes the huge corner block of stones concreted together.



This whole area will be cleaned out and leveled.



Removing the weeds and getting the ground level is where most of the time was spent.  Once the initial work was done with the tractor everything else had to be done by hand with a rake.






As I was working on removing the weeds the foxes came out.




Finally the ground was level.







Seed, straw, and water was next






Fiona came out to check things out.




The grass started coming up and was being monitored by Fiona



Ready for the first mow




After the first mow.  It is still looking spotty as the area gets only 1-2 hours of direct sunlight a day.  I'm hoping it will start to fill in as the weather cools.

@Kitties-with-Sigs

Interesting behavior from the female fox and I'm not sure what to make of it.  There has always been a runt of the litter that was more skittish than the others but hung around the shed with the mother.  She has always taken it food.  Even in the yard she will pick up a bite and take it to various kits and seems to distribute pretty fairly between them.  Lately she has been refusing to give the runt any food and then started attacking it and chasing it away.  Several of the attacks were pretty viscous with it clamping down on the runts neck and shaking it.  The run is still about 3/4 grown, so it isn't tiny or helpless just smaller than the others.

At first I thought she stopped taking food to all the kits, sort of weaning them off any help since the nights are getting cooler. However, tonight she took food to several kits who ran off with it.  I gave her another piece and the runt tried to get it.  She moved away from the runt, dropped the food at a kit that already had food, and then attacked the runt viscously again.  It is very clear she was intentionally avoiding it when she had food and the run is the only one that she has attacked.  

A couple thoughts.  The runt could be female and she is trying to push it away from her space or she could be giving it less food so that it learns to go out and hunt more since it has been more dependent on her.  The last theory is she knows it is smaller/weaker than the others and doesn't want it around because she knows it will struggle to make it.  So she is feeding the strong ones to help them stock up for the winter.  

Any ideas on what is going on?  They all are in good health now. Runt is usually in the front far right in my pictures.  

That is what I've been doing.  I have to throw it in an area the mother and others run for it but the runt knows it won't get it and hangs back.  Then quickly throw a larger item to the runt.  I'm still not sure if that is a good or bad approach.  If the runt needs to be more aggressive and improve its hunting abilities then by me giving it food it won't need to try as hard.  I don't always get out there to throw food out, especially if it rains and in the coldest days of winter.  I would hate to think I'm helping but I'm actually setting it up for failure.

How far have you gotten on the house? This is a very cool project! I wish you success! Thank you for sharing OP.

I haven't done much with the house other than looking into the various problems and trying to determine the root causes.  Every time I work on one problem I end up finding three more and then I can't finish the first problem until I fix the others.  

Water and fire are the biggest threats to any house and this house needs some major work to reduce those threats.  I need to hire an architect to design a new roof system for at least half the house.  The electrical wiring contractor cut corners every place the owner or an inspector wouldn't really look.  On top of that squirrels got inside and chewed random wires all over the house.  

Running some new wires might sound simple; however, the walls aren't just 2x4 with drywall, they are 2x6 with plywood sheeting and then drywall.  Wires inside those walls were joined without junction boxes and have also been chewed by rodents.  To fix the electrical I pretty much have to gut the house which involves tearing out sheets of plywood.

The roof, part of which I replaced the sheeting and patched just 5 years ago and continued to get water into it and leak to the point the sheeting is bad again.  There is simply too much water flowing over a low slope EPDM room that typically has a 10 year life under good conditions.  The water needs to be redirected somewhere else, the roof pitch changed, and a different material needs to be used.  Otherwise, in 10 more years I will be in the exact same situation of rotten sheeting.  

Plumbing I did run a new waterline from the street to the house using Pex A.  I have that running through part of the house but haven't finished that install.  I have since learned that rodents will chew through that as well.  I posted pictures of that dirt crawlspace.  The water line has been in there about a year so I need to get back under there and check on it.  

I've been focusing on the outdoor projects mainly because I can start them and leave them as needed.  If I tear open the roof I have to get it covered back up or I will have even bigger problems.  Working on it in the evenings means stuff like the roof is really a no-go unless I know there is a long period of no rain.  

One big outside project remaining that I want to get done before I start on the inside is moving the electrical meter.  Currently is tucked into  an area on the side of the house.  I would like to move that to a pedestal mount by the pole.  Then add another breaker box in the middle of the house so that I could rewire half the house using runs that are 1/3 of the length that they currently are.  As I mentioned random wires are chewed up, so I want to run new wires that I know are wired correctly, properly grounded, and eliminate anything that I can't see that could possibly have been chewed.    

@Kitties-with-Sigs  update on the fox behavior.  

New behavior from the mother that has me thinking the 5th kit that showed up during the summer is not one of hers but one from another fox. She must have just been tolerating it while it was warm and food was plentiful.  Now that it is turning fall and food is becoming more scare she is chasing it off so her kits get more.  This past week the runt did not show up with the rest of them.  Two nights ago the mother moved to the terrace wall and then tore into something that I couldn't see.  I didn't see anything run away and her kits were still on the upper terrace.  It must have been the runt that she attacked and wouldn't even allow to come up to the upper terrace.

Last night the mother barely ate anything and instead switched into bouncer mode and sat the terrace wall looking out for the runt.  That is the same spot that she tore into something the night before.  I did manage to see all 7 foxes last night.  Two were on the lower terrace and 5 were on the upper.  The male keeps his distance so I knew the remaining one on the lower terrace was the runt.  The mom would not leave her post which you can see in the picture below. I would distract the kits up top with some food and then throw larger quantities down to the runt.

The male fox typically stays on they lower terrace about halfway between where they eat and the bridge.  From what I can tell he is keeping their route back home secure.  The last couple nights something had caught his attention and he had started barking. The mom takes off running towards him and the others scatter.  It's very interesting just observing their behavior.

There is a new critter that showed up. He has no fear and walked right up to me.  That is a bit concerning but so far no aggression.  Perhaps he has been watching me feed the foxes and figures I'm safe.

Love the foxes and too bad USDA APHIS was no help. Have you made any progress on the house?

I haven't really worked inside the house over the last year.  That last major thing I did was the replacing the water line which which was about a year ago.  There is very little that can be worked on that doesn't require a significant amount of demolition to gain the proper access needed.  No point in patching and painting a wall when I will need to tear part of it out to get to the electrical and plumbing.  I need to come up with an overall plan for the house, which includes replacing almost all the electrical and plumbing inside of it.

Only occasionally will he come up to eat. He pretty much lives off the land like a regular fox would but if I throw a hotdog his way he will take it.  The mom will take bites of food from me and that it to the various kits and seems to try to make it pretty equal.  Whoever is more aggressive tends to get it but they also know not to be that aggressive around her.  Otherwise I just try to throw the hotdog pieces out to each one and try to split it up.

It is cat food, Meow Mix specifically.  It is the cheapest cat food that the mother fox would steadily eat.  She preferred it over everything else so that is what they get.  I still take fresh meat, eggs, and other food scraps including berries over.  The mother fox does not blackberries or strawberries but she will eat grapes all day long.  

Judging from the size and health of her littler cat food and hot dogs are super foods for gray foxes.  I wish I could provide better nutrition for them but as it is the cat food and hotdogs are expensive enough.

Pretty cool stuff. Is that your bridge over the creek? Haven’t checked on this thread but was talking to my wife about another member and she asked about how the fox guy was doing…so we looked you up.
She misses the couple of foxes we had living in the my hay barn. We didnt feed them but they frequented her little garden. As soon as we seen chicken bones around we figured the neighbor took them out.

Yes, that's my bridge to part of the property across the creek.  A few pages back, may have been Sept/Oct 2020, I posted a ton of pictures about how I rebuilt the rock wall for it.

I was out of town for a week and decided to turn an old deer feeder into a cat food animal feeder.  I also had a friend stop by a couple times to feed the foxes.  They will only get close to me and kept their distance from him but he was still able to enjoy watching them chase down hot dog bits.

Images from the deer/animal feeder.  Every night my backyard is like this.


Three foxes, 2 possums, and 1 raccoon.




Four foxes




Two raccoons, 3 possums, and 3 foxes



Three raccoons, 3 possums, and 4 foxes.

I have a creek project that has been ongoing for awhile.  The weather has been dry, really dry, and the creek is lowest I've seen it and it has stayed that way for months.  That has resulted in me going way over board with part of the project.  I'm getting close to wrapping up phase one of it and will provide an update after that.  

This part of the creek is the largest pool of water that I have.  The water level is usually two the base of the large sycamore tree.




The creek is so still that this is not a picture of a flat dry creek bottom, it is the same area with the same water as above just covered in leaves due to zero movement of the water.

With the foxes I was seeing 3-4 a night.  The mother, her two kits, and the third kit that showed up.  It looks like the mother has successfully chased off the third kit as I have not seen it over a week.  Now it is just the mother and the 2 kits that she had in the shed when they were younger.  From the size and behavior it looks like one male and one female.  The others are around, as I will hear the male barking at something everyone once in awhile.  Also the mother will grab some food and head back to where the area that she comes from.

That part of the creek is at least 30 feet wide.  I can tell you from the other part of the project that I'm working on that the entire water flow in the creek right now can be restricted to a 12 inch wide channel and is less than 2 inches deep.


This is all the water flowing in the creek right now.




Yes that little shovel wide stream is all that is feeding this big pool and the rest of the creek right now.  One creek project the other weekend involved renting the excavator again to dig out the creek south of the bridge.