The canidae family(foxes).

Part one the fox.

Foxes are mainly active at dawn and dusk and By now foxes have just about finished mating.During the mating season the dog fox and the vixen are normally seen together,They hunt and travel together for about three weeks.The gestation period for the vixen is about 53 days.You may hear foxes barking during the mating season.Their cubs are born in march or April,They are born in the den on the bare soil as the vixen makes no nest.The litter may contain between three and five cubs.After the vixen has given birth she spends the majority of the time in her den,The male fox will make frequent trips to and from the den,making provisions for his mate,this continues with solid food for the cubs when they are between four and eight weeks old.The cubs open their eyes when they are between ten and fourteen days old,And after about six weeks they leave the den for the first time.The cubs are born blind and have a dark chocolate brown fur,This changes to their familiar red coat after about eight weeks.Foxes are carnivores and great scavengers, they will eat almost anything from voles to rabbits and carcasses,Their prey is usually detected by sound,The dog fox will leap on the spot the sound came from,Pinning the prey with his forepaws. During summer and early autumn they may eat beetles and berries,They are really resourceful animals,and they manage to thrive in all sorts of places from our towns and cities to the countryside.The territory of the dog fox overlaps the vixens.Even though most of the time you see Fox's on their own,They actually live in family groups,Made up of a dominant dog fox,a breeding vixen,her cubs and maybe a couple of non breeding vixens ,Who may help to bring up the cubs.Foxes may meet up during the night to play or for mutual grooming.Alert and wary,Foxes have acute hearing,a keen sense of smell and their eyes are quick to detect movement,But they may struggle if their prey stays stationary.As foxes are extremely adaptable they are doing really well in our towns and cities,They are less likely to be as wary of humans in our towns as they would be if seen in the country.A fox will look its best between October and February,During may they will start to moult from their winter coat .They have amber eyes and a big bushy tail,Its coat may vary from yellow brown to their distinctive red coat,They have a silvery rump, their lower legs and the backs of their ears are black with a white tip at the end of their tail.The dog fox stands about 16 inches tall, their head and body is about 26 inches long.Vixens have been seen with dog Fox's around her,but equally if numbers are high the dominant male will leave his vixen,his territory and go in search of other vixens to mate with,But he may also mate with other vixens from his family group.Half of the DNA of an individual fox comes from his father,The other half comes from his mother.Subordinate males may mate with other vixens from other groups,but not with the dominant vixen from their own family group,Towards the end of the year young male cubs will have to find their own territory,The dominant dog fox may drive them away from the group. When populations of foxes were lesser because of sarcoptic mange(also known as scabies) which is a skin disease caused by an infection by the sarcoptes scabei mite,Which killed a lot of foxes,dominant male foxes and dominant vixens became monogamous,meaning they paired up together and stayed together for life,Consequently there were fewer subordinate males so less competition so they became less promiscuous.But when the population of foxes grows again the dominant male becomes polygamous,This is when a dominant male will pair with two or more vixens,This can be with vixens in their own social group or with vixens from neighbouring groups.