foxes

[clarabeth]

why do foxes bite the heads off several chickens but dont actually eat them?

[B00]

I'm sure I read/ heard somewhere that foxes would take the other chickens they killed over a given time, except we uncover the massacre site before they can do this and wrongly assume they've killed the others for fun.

[juliacornwal]

Well after the fox bit the heads off all our chickens and ducks for the umpteenth time, we filled the carcases full of something nasty and waited for him to come back - but the ******* never did! I don't think they go out to destroy with the idea of having fun, because frankly that's way beyond their brain-power, I think it's an instinct thing, that when prey are unable to escape, they simply feel the urge the kill them all. Whatever, foxes are no friends of mine!

[lankeela]

They kill en mass so that they have plenty to eat for the future, in case they don't get another chance to eat for a while. Its a natural instinct to provide food except they don't bother to freeze it, or put it in the larder.

[horsestache1]

Because they are nasty little bu**ers!

Well its instict but a nasty one.

[RATTER15]

Nothing nasty about foxes!!

juliacornwall, I would be interested to know what you put in that carcass that was so nasty!!

Whatever it was would probably have caused immeasurable suffering to the fox, NOW THAT IS NASTY!!!

[andy-hughes]

lankeela is quite right. A fox will kill all the chickens it can find, then bury them for future use. Hen houses with dead chickens in mean the fox has been disturbed before he can get them away and buried.

The idea that foxes kill for 'fun' is utter garbage - that's what hunts do - don't confuse the uneatable with the unspeakable!

[horsestache1]

Julia, I wish I'd has some of your "stuff" to put in the carcasses of my seven, one day old lamb's!!!!

Now that was a NASTY sight.

Fox hunting is banned, get over it

[Thunderbird+]

The way I see it is.....The fox is only after One thing and thats not fun, it's food to survive!
In the confines of a hen-house it may attack several birds in the frenzy and given the chance would return for the ones it could'nt carry the first time and bury them for later consumption.
I dont think the Question was anything to do with hating them or liking them.
The Foxes cunning and adaptability, has to be admired and this is why it is so successful as a species.

[bensmum]

The way I see it is that a fox is unlikely to go into a hen house or a field of lambs thinking it will see how many it can kill just for the hell of it. I know from experience how horrible the aftermath of a fox kill can be but they are out to survive, the same as most species. Except for (dare I say it!) man who seems to think it's a god-given right to slaughter anything he deems to be a pest (including other men in some cases)

[gillywilly97]

Well said Bensmum!

[newtron]

I think you guys are give too much credit to animals. I saw this nature program once where this Bob Cat was wandering around in the desert, when he came across a rattle snake hanging out in the sand minding his own business. The cat could have just walked around it, but instead the cat fought it, killed it, and just left it there. The cat was bored, and thought it would have some fun by killing a snake.

I could see that if a fox was not hungry, he would not want to necessarily put too much energy in hunting prey, but if he found a chicken coup full of easy prey, I could see a fox killing a bunch of chickens just for fun. Foxes do play.

[andy-hughes]

I don't think that comparison stands up newtron.

Cats hunt in an entirely different way that dogs. It is acknowledged that domestic cats will keep their intinctive hunting skills in condition by 'playing' with prey they catch - releasing and then capturing it again. Wild cats undoubtedly do the same, but on this occasion, the cat was killing a known predator which could do it harm, probably an instinctive reaction rather than amusement.

[newtron]

Do wild animals play? Of course they do, especially mammals! Yes,much of their time is spent looking for food and survival, but there are definitely times when they are not hungry and they probably find themselves bored from time to time. So, why does it surprise you that they might kill another animal for fun. Animals are not these robots that just behave out of instincts. There is a lot of current research that is showing that animal psychology is much more complex than we originally thought. Duhh!! Any pet owner should be able to figure that one out. Personally, I think most researchers are starting out with the wrong null hypothesis. They begin with the assumption that animals only act out of instinct and then design experiment to see if they cane prove that hypothesis wrong. I think they should start with the hypothesis that animals are exactly like humans and then design experiments to see how they are different from humans. Have you read "Dragons of Eden" by Carl Sagan? It's a good read. He suggests that the separation between animals and humans is not that big, and that it is a continuum. In other words, psychologically, we have everything animals have + a little more. And because emotions are generally associated with the more primative parts of our brain, which all mammals also have, it it suggests that all mammals have these emotions. I've had pet for a long time, and it does not take a rocket scientist to know that this is true!