dead fox in my barn????

nightwatchman

nightwatchman

New member
i walked up to our barn across the road from my house last night... (wednesday is trash pickup) and set your trash out and decided to look around the barn.. noone really goes in the barn during the winter bc i dont store the hay in there anymore and just keep the wagons and two tractors in there. we have a guy that leases part of the pasture for a few horses and uses some of the barn but not all of it.. well to make a long story short, i walked back between two of the calf stalls to another bay in the corner of the barn and looked down to see a red fox dead in my barn.. couldnt believe it. looked like a descent sized fox. its really hard to tell how long it has been there bc of the cold weather and it had started to shrink towards the ground basically but all the hide and fur was still intact.
what do you guys think could of killed this thing. from the looks of it it looked healthy bodywise. i dont know whether to call the odnr and see if they want to look it over or not or just pitch it out over the hill and forget about it. i really dont my dogs around the barn now incase it had rabies or something. what do you guys think?
 
nothing in the barn but old cow manure from the 80s... other then that just old tobacco sticks,t-posts,thats it basically.. two hay wagons and two tractors...

in the back of my mind i know if i call the odnr they wont come out. especially our worthless game warden. he lives less then 5 minutes from my farm and i know he wouldnt show.. ill give him a call anyway and see what they say. ill let you guys know something back... might be fun to see if they show any interest.
 
Here in SC we have DHEC, which would be responsible for most rabies/disease investigations in domestic and wild animals... I am sure there is something similar in Ohio, if not the same organization(?)
 
i called and they said just to pitch it over the hill...works for me. .. i wish i would of found it alittle sooner, it looked like it had a good fur on it... just my luck..hahaha..
 
Man that's hard to say. It could have suffered some wound and crawled in the barn where it died from the injury. Maybe a car hit it, coyote or big dog somewhere chewed it up, someone poked a .22LR or other little bullet in a place that was not immediately lethal, diseased, posioned, ect... For future reference check your county health department to see if they do testing for rabies and other diseases. That's who is responsible for such testing here.
 
For what it's worth, I also found a Red Fox near my barn. It was laying just outside the back side. Died sometime earlier in winter - there were no signs of outside wounds. Just died.
 
Ok nightwatchman and WVTreeman, here we go!

I started trapping this year and decided I wanted to learn from the best. One of our locals in his 60's who has been trapping since he was nine yrs old. Is a instructor for the Virginia Trapper Association. He is respected by all, not a know it all in his mind, but he knows alot.

He told me that during and after periods of cold weather, where water sources are frozen over, that he looks around old barns and sheds and abandon buildings for "young of the year" foxes who haven't broke the code on getting moisture into their system, they simply die of dehydration. The reason they die there is because they know it as a source of rodents and easy prey animals and in their weaken state they attempt to recover there. There you have it, Gentlemen!

He says he picks up two-three sometimes four a year like that. Easy fur money, no steel laid, no bullet fired.
 
Pruson,
Wow, that's an interesting theory. It runs counter to everything we "think" we know about sharp minded predators, but he may have something. I've never heard of that before, but if it is true, how interesting.
 
in my case it makes sense to a degree.. if the creek was dried up(small flowing creek coming out of the hollor) and the pond was frove over(within 30yards of the barn) that could be why he was there.. when i rabbit hunt around the farm that is the first place the rabbits run... straight to the barn!!!!! and it was a younger looking fox too.
 
He says you can tell the fox is dehydrated by the color of the flesh and how easy the hide seperates during skinning. I don't remember all his comments.

GC, it is mainly the "young of the year" he says, those who haven't gotten the opportunity to live up to our mind set of them yet.

Treeman, there is always that exception to every theory, and theory it is.

But it is ironic, that many foxes do die in barns and out buildings and then for it to be mentioned here, by multiple folks, after me being told that. Seeking shelter from the elements????
 
Interesting thread, I have also found dead foxes in our barns. I always blamed it on distemper or similiar disease. But who knows, maybe the fellow is on to something. I have also heard stories from two different friends that had foxes sitting in their driveways that refused to leave and actually growled at them when they approached. One of them blamed it on rabies, shot the animal, and tossed it over the hill. The other simply drove his car around it and never saw it again. Take care all.
 
Thank you for your comments trapwv. I thought I was having the pelt pulled over my eyes there for a minute, NOT.

Ironic though, huh!
 


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