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Fox Feeding

Many people believe that the fox is a carnivore but they aren’t. Instead, they are omnivores as they will consume just about anything. The diet for the fox is very diverse which is part of why they are able to live in so many different locations out there.

They tend to consume smaller animals including rodents, rabbits, and squirrels. The fox is one type of canine that hunts lives and hunts on their own instead of in a pack. Therefore they need to find prey they can easily take down on their own.

Small birds are part of their diet too in many areas. This is often a seasonal food though depending on the climate. The fox is known to feed on berries and fruits that can seasonally grow in different areas as well. They have an amazing memory so they will return to those locations at the right time each year to benefit from the foods offered there.

They will consume beetles, earthworms, and spiders too when they find them. For a fox, passing up a meal is never an option. They aren’t selective when it comes to eating. They won’t pass over what is in front on them in the hopes of finding something better. Part of their survival is that they are satisfied to eat just about anything.

The fox is well known for its ability to adapt to the types of foods that are available in any given area. That is why they have been able to survive for millions of years. This is also why they have been able to continue living in areas where other canines including the wolf are no longer found.

The fact that the fox continues to have to share its environment with humans has drastically affected its eating habits. For example small family pets including cats and dogs can become their prey. They are also well known scavengers with a taste for human foods. They will go through trash and consume plenty of different items.

The male fox may sometimes try to consume the young if he is struggling to find enough food out there. This isn’t very common though due to the fact that the fox can usually find something else to eat in their environment so that such behavior isn’t necessary.

There is a myth that continues to circulate about the fox being a killer for fun in addition to doing so for food. Careful research has been conducted in this department and it isn’t true. Findings do show that the fox will kill even when it isn’t hungry though. They tend to do this when they have cycles of not finding enough food.

By killing when they aren’t hungry, they will have a resource of food that they can consume later on. They will hide it until they are hungry or they will bury that food source and come back for it later. They never kill anything though just for the sake of doing so and then wander off from it.

This type of myth develops when a fox goes into a hen house and kills many of them. Yet if that fox were to continue uninterrupted it would return to feed on each of them or to take them to another location to feed on later. They are interpreted in this behavior as simply killing the hens to do so, but that isn’t what they are trying to accomplish at all.

Another myth is that the fox will kill humans for food. This has never been documented as being true. There are myths about them taking small children from campsites but that too has never been verified as actually occurring. There are some canines though such as the dingo that have been linked to that behavior.

Copyright © 2012