After receiving numerous concerns and inquiries from the public, I felt it was important to share a reminder. Maintaining a healthy, natural diet is essential for ensuring the well-being of foxes. Wild foxes should only be fed daily when they are being medicated. As stewards of wildlife, we have a responsibility not to interfere unnecessarily. As Trevor Williams of the Fox Project wisely states, "They don't need us".
Should We Be Feeding Foxes?
To explore this question, Somerset Live reached out to The Fox Man, a non-profit organization based in Greater Manchester. Despite being located up north, their responsive Facebook presence has allowed them to offer advice to fox lovers across the UK.
According to The Fox Man, "The primary concern with feeding foxes is their potential dependence on humans for food. If for any reason you stop—whether due to moving or going on holiday—the fox that has come to rely on a regular feeding schedule may struggle to find food. This can lead to them venturing further into other foxes' territories, potentially sparking territorial conflicts. The best practice is to give small amounts of food, such as peanuts or a modest portion of dog food."
He added, "If you choose to feed foxes, it’s important to leave food out rather than hand-feeding or associating yourself directly with the food. Foxes that lose their natural fear of humans can face danger, as not everyone is as fox-friendly as you might be. It's essential not to create a dependency on humans for food, as foxes are very capable of finding their own. In fact, they tend to bury excess food for later, which can cause issues for neighbours who may find buried food like chicken drumsticks in their gardens!"
How Much Food Is Too Much?
Studies into urban fox diets suggest that human food waste constitutes about 18% of their intake (significantly less for rural foxes). Foxes generally need about 120 calories per kilogram of body weight each day, and their weight typically ranges from 4-8 kg.
On average, foxes consume about 400 grams of food per day, with roughly 70 grams of that being human food waste. The rest is usually cached. If you're feeding a fox around 70 grams of appropriate food every 2-3 days, it is unlikely to cause dependence or negatively impact their health or behaviour.
More on feeding wild foxes here:Â Wildlife Feeding Ethics.
What Should I Feed Foxes?
Feeding wild foxes is generally unnecessary unless there is a specific welfare reason, such as administering medication under veterinary guidance. Foxes play a crucial ecological role in seed dispersal by consuming fruits and berries. Their waste aids in the growth of trees, particularly around long-established dens, where trees often grow faster due to the nutrients in fox excrement. Additionally, their digging for earthworms and insects can improve soil productivity by aerating and fertilizing the ground. Feeding foxes unnecessarily can disrupt these natural processes.
If you wish to observe foxes without encouraging dependence, you can support them by planting native and edible plants. Up to 30% of a fox’s diet can consist of plant matter, so by fostering a healthy environment, you provide natural sources of food that help foxes maintain their health. Some plants that are safe and beneficial for foxes include mugwort, garden cress, dandelion, milk thistle, chamomile, and more. These plants support the local ecosystem while allowing foxes to engage in natural behaviours like self-medicating and hunting.
Foxes’ Dietary Requirements
If you choose to supplement a wild fox's diet, it’s crucial to understand their dietary needs and limitations. Foxes have small stomachs and eat less than a domestic cat. When they carry off food, it’s not necessarily because they are hungry; foxes often cache food, sometimes burying it in neighbours' gardens, which can lead to complaints and health risks like exposure to toxoplasmosis from cat faeces.
A wild fox consumes approximately 400 grams of food per night, the equivalent of a young rabbit or 5-10 rodents, depending on its size. Over a year, they can consume around 150 kg of food. If you are supplementing their diet, limit it to about 70 grams of fox-appropriate food per day.
Foxes can eat a wide range of foods, including:
Rodents and rabbits
Birds and eggs
Insects, earthworms, and invertebrates (never release live food)
Fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts, and seeds
Commercial cat and dog food
Unspoiled human food waste
Foods to Avoid
There are several foods you should never feed foxes, including:
Rawhide and large dog bones (they cannot digest these)
Junk food and processed foods high in salt (e.g sausage rolls)
Cooked bones (can splinter and cause intestinal damage)
Chocolate (toxic and can harm the heart and nervous system)
Onion, garlic, mushrooms (can cause blood disorders)
Raw pork (risk of trichinosis unless properly cooked or frozen)
Grapes and raisins (toxic to canids)
Caffeine, xylitol (both cause life threatening disease)
Spoiled or contaminated food (risks illness)
Human medications (dangerous and often fatal to foxes)
More on silver fox nutrition here: Silver Fox Nutrition.
Does Food Presentation Affect Disease Risk?
Yes, Be aware that food presentation is important, as this can contribute to issues such as; infighting, excessive caching or marking in neighbours gardens, increased dependence (laziness) and increased risks of disease.
There is a reason ourselves and our pets do not all eat out of the same bowl. There is a reason we do not leave excessive food out uncovered for extended periods. There is a reason we keep our bowls and utensils clean. There is a reason highly processed foods should not make up large amounts of our diets.
Please consider how you might be promoting parasite and disease transmission with your food choice and presentation methods, and be sure to reduce the risks wherever possible.
Feeding Do's and Don'ts
When feeding wild foxes, it's important to follow responsible practices that protect both their well-being and the local environment. Below are key guidelines to ensure your actions support foxes without causing harm or altering their natural behaviour.
Do leave out a bowl of fresh water
Do limit supplementary feeding
Do plant native and edible plantsÂ
Do keep hygiene a priority
Don't habituate foxes, it will lead to their demise.
Don't overfeed, it will lead to new health issues.
Don't hand feed, it changes behaviour
Don't invite wild foxes into your home, it is a recipe for disaster
How to Support Foxes Without Feeding Them
The best way to support foxes is by providing a safe, undisturbed environment. Let your garden grow wild, plant native fruit-bearing and medicinal plants, and create safe spaces where foxes can shelter from the elements.
Foxes typically only remain in one area when raising young (March to August), often returning to the same breeding grounds. It’s crucial to give them the space to teach their cubs to hunt and forage naturally, rather than encouraging them to beg for processed food.
More on silver fox nutrition here: Silver Fox Nutrition.
"Created by doctoral student Owen Middleton, CarniDIET is an open-access database which aims to catalog the diets of the world's carnivores by bringing together past peer-reviewed research. He hopes it will be a useful resource for conservationists and researchers, as well as educators and nature-lovers alike.
Owen said: "There is so much information out there that is useful for conservation, but much of it isn't digitized, or it may be difficult for people to access.
"Typically, anybody interested in species' diets would have to go through an extensive body of literature, but through CarniDIET, there's now an easy way to access this information with all the original references cited."
The main purpose of CarniDIET is to facilitate further conservation research by providing a place to easily access data describing the ecological requirements and ecological effects of many endangered species, which can vary across their geographic ranges.
However, there are also hopes that the tool can be more widely used by teachers, students and citizen scientists."
Great post, although I fear a lot of people simply aren't interested in hearing the truth. One time I tried to explain to someone why they shouldn't be feeding bowls of chocolate custard to foxes and they just started ranting about how I was wrong because they'd fed chocolate to foxes for years and it was a myth that it was harmful. How do you counter that kind of stubborn ignorance?
I think a lot of people also don't understand what a healthy wild fox should look like. There's a huge obesity problem with pets and people are now projecting that onto wild animals. Almost daily I see people commenting on photos of perfectly healthy foxes saying they look thin and starving, or saying they want to fatten up their local foxes. I've seen and photographed wild foxes that were not just fat but full on obese from being overfed by people;
(I know this fox was being fed large amounts of food by multiple households)
I feel like this is a topic that needs more education for the public, perhaps even in schools. People will sign petitions to ban fox hunting and save foxes from pest controllers while at the same time actively harming the foxes in their own back yard with overfeeding, giving them the wrong kinds of food and encouraging behaviour that makes them more vulnerable to the pest controllers they claim to hate. People like to think of them like their pets and call them their furbabies but it's completely the wrong attitude to have. Foxes are amazing animals but need to be respected as wild animals. As mentioned previously, I've been feeding a litter of orphaned cubs but carefully reduced the amount of food as they got older to the point they are now completely independent of me and able to hunt and forage for themselves. And that's how it should be.
Some studies of interest;
Challenges and Directions in Zoo and Aquarium Food Presentation Research: A Review
The importance of food presentation for animal welfare and conservation
Assessing the direct and indirect effects of food provisioning and nutrient enrichment on wildlife infectious disease dynamics
Correction factors for estimating food consumption by red fox Vulpes vulpes from scats
Addressing Food Conditioning Of Cascade Red Foxes