The Foxes Den / Foxes Earth

(1) The foxes den - a general overview

Outside the breeding season, red foxes spend much of their time above ground, often lying up during the day in dense vegetation, under tree roots and in other places that offer shelter and concealment; or when they do not face disturbance, cheekily sunning themselves out in the open.

Even during the breeding season, vixens can sometimes be seen above ground during the day, whilst their cubs remain relatively safely underground nearby

Harsh weather during any season might, however, drive them underground for a while, but generally, use of dens - or earths, as they are sometimes known - is a feature of late-winter through to early summer when a secure place sheltered from the elements is required for the vixen to give birth to her cubs and for them to be raised until they reach an age when they have a reasonable chance of survival above ground. Even during this period, though, when the cubs no longer depend on the vixen's body heat to keep them warm, she will often stay above ground somewhere nearby during the day.

Vixens make their breeding dens in a wide variety of places and often ensure that a number of entrances / exits are present as alternative means of escape from predators or other sources of disturbance. When living in the suburbs, space beneath garden sheds is a favourite location, whilst in the countryside, underground breeding dens in hedgerows, woodland, sloping open ground, or at woodland edges, for example, may be excavated by the fox in preparation for the birth of the cubs, although many foxes commandeer and enlarge part of a rabbit warren or take over a section of a badgers' sett.

But unlike badgers, animals that quite sensibly excavate sleeping chambers within their setts and furnish them with copious amounts of bedding, foxes do not bother and instead lie directly on the cold, damp earth, which all-in-all doesn't seem to be much of a survival plan when it is considered that newly born cubs are easily chilled, sometimes fatally, by night-time temperatures.

And again to some extent unlike badgers, when vixens are spooked and sense significant danger, they may well up-sticks altogether and move the cubs to another nearby den within their home range, whereas badgers if disturbed may be far more tolerant and simply move to a different part of their sett.

Dens may be re-used annually by the same vixen particularly, it is assumed, when the den has previously been used to successfully rear cubs, whilst vixens will also inherit dens from previous generations.