Fox Enrichment

After a few weeks of bottle feeding and once they were eating solid food (meat and day old chicks), signed off by the vets and wormed, a few groups of our fox cubs were ready to be moved from their inside cubicles to our outside fox runs.  We took them out in skippers, put them in the run and opened the doors.  We watched for a while (from outside) and they appeared quite hesitant to start with but after a while they were sniffing around their new environment. They eventually found their den and disappeared.

Each run contains a concreted area (for hygiene purposes) and a small den where the cubs will spend much of their time initially.  We added tyres and pipes for enrichment and bark chippings to make it more representative of the wild.  Currently they are being fed twice a day but whenever time allows the team try to enrich the animals by enriching the pens and hiding / scattering food. Under Rob's guidance myself and fellow student Jenna drilling holes into logs in which we filled with donated dog food food.  Each run has a camera set onto motion sensor setting which allows us to check the foxes without interfering with them in anyway.  It is so important that we keep our wild animals wild which is reinforced to Jenna and I constantly by the team.

Jenna and I are looking forward to checking out the video tomorrow to see if all our hard work was worth it.  (Update: everything was gone the next day and it kept them busy for a while so all our hard work was worth it).

Catherine Smith

Student Placement

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