Fox Repellent and Prevention

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Below is my advice for preventing fox problems. There's no effective spray or powder or any repellant product, but you can keep foxes away.
You’ve probably looked at a fox and thought to yourself “how adorable.” Foxes are adorable but they are also sneaky, conniving and crafty little animals. Not only will they mercilessly dine on your farm animals but they can also cause great damage to your property. They can burrow under the foundation of your property and cause damage to the structure. Rather than letting them force you out of your home, you’ve probably tried a number of different repellants to keep them away. Read the guide Ways to Keep Foxes Off of Your Property.

Remove Food Sources
Foxes are another one of those animals that will eat just about anything they can get a hold of. By eliminating possible food sources from your yard, you may be able to repel them, forcing them to look for their meals somewhere else. If you use outside trash cans, consider using metal cans with a lid that screws on. This way, if the fox knocks it over, they still won’t be able to get to what’s inside. Never leave pet food outdoors. Not only will this welcome foxes, it will also encourage other mice and rodents to pay your yard a visit, which is also adding another food source for the fox. Clear your yard of any fallen fruit and seeds and if you have a chicken coop, make sure that it is securely latched tight. Consider investing in a wire roof; because foxes can climb, just locking up your chicken coop is not enough.

Taste Repellants
By bordering your lovely garden with yellow onion plants, hot pepper, garlic and making a spicy spray, some people believe this will repel foxes against feeding on the foods in their garden. To make the spray, you would need to cut up a pepper, onion and a head of garlic. Boil the veggies all together in two quarts of water. Use a sieve to drain the veggies and pour the mixture into a spray bottle. Supposedly, you can spray this mixture every two weeks on any plants in your yard, trash cans and other areas you don’t want the fox bothering. While this option is not very expensive, it doesn’t repel the fox from coming into your yard and you have to continuously maintain it for it to be effective. It just keeps them from eating plants and veggies you don’t want them to eat. Besides, if it rains you’ll have to reapply the mixture again.

Scent Repellants
Scent repellants can also be used to repel foxes because they are often created with the ingredients citronella or ammonium which let off a strong smell. This smell gives the fox the impression that another animal is fighting for the same territory. These repellants can be bought as a powder or spray that you would put down around the perimeter of your yard and garden. They can be effective in repelling foxes but some of these repellants often have chemicals in them that would cause some serious health issues if your children or pets got a hold of it. Besides, you have to continue to reapply the repellant which can cause you to run through your savings pretty fast.

Fences
Electric fences are another option that people might consider to deter foxes. In order for this to work, you must dig a trench around your yard or the area that you’re fencing in. The trench should be about 1 foot wide and 2 feet deep. Position a mesh fence of wire inside of the trench letting some of it extend out from the bottom. The openings in the fence should not exceed 3 inches and once you’ve positioned it as needed, you can bury the trench. If the fox even touches the fence, he’ll soon discover that his intentions will need to be re-evaluated. The only problem with this is that if you don’t really know what you’re doing, you can waste valuable time and money on installation. And let’s not forget that the foxes may not be the only ones getting an uncomfortable jolt; you pet, children or other animals and humans can become injured as well.

Regular wire fences are also an option but they must be buried at least 10 inches under the ground and 6 feet high. However, who’s to say that the fox won’t try to climb that high?

Foxes can be very difficult animals to deter because they are less afraid of us than smaller animals. Repellants may keep them away for a while but eventually they usually come back.

For more information, go to may main fox removal page or read the guide ways to get rid of foxes.

Best Fox Repellents

You’d be amazed by how many fox repellents there are on the market, and you’d also be amazed by how many of them simply don't work. We’ve heard of cases where homeowners have spent hundreds and thousands of dollars on various deterrents and repellents, only to never get rid of the animal they were being invaded by. It appears to be a running trend too, especially with foxes. We (the wildlife control experts) get the call only AFTER hundreds of dollars and a few months have been wasted.



Just saying …

You could try using something like ammonia repellent sachets or mothballs. Add Creosote-soaked rags to that list too. They’re all so-called fox repellents that we have come across on the internet, and they’re all really quite dangerous.

When any of these three things makes its way into water sources or soil, it contaminates. It can contaminate plant life, and if it is eaten by an animal, it can cause death by poisoning, and then even secondary poisoning, if another animal were to eat the carcass. Read the guide Should You Poison a Fox?

As well as being dangerous, they don’t work, and if something bad happens as a result of using them, you could even find yourself with a legal battle on your hands. It’s really not an advisable approach for ANY wild animal.

You could always use urine, but not human urine. You can buy wildlife eviction fluid (also known by a number of other ways), and there are a few different types on offer. Fox urine has been used in one version, and this can be used to repel raccoons, opossums, skunks, and even young or female foxes in some cases. A female fox won't much appreciate another male lurking around on her territory, so the smell could just be enough to encourage her to move along of her own accord, and take her youngsters with her.

A male fox, on the other hand, can become quite agitated as a result of sniffing out the urine of another male on his territory, and this doesn’t spell good things for your pets, children, or even adult members of your household. These creatures are usually shy and quite wary of humans, but they’ve learned that humans mean food int his day and age. They’re losing that shyness and getting braver, and when they don't get what they want (which is usually food), they get quite snappy about it.

Electronic devices are another option you could look towards, but these are often very expensive, especially when you opt for one that is run by solar power, ironically, in a bid to save some cash. Admittedly, once these solar-power ones are installed, you don’t need to do anything, but you do need to remember the initial cost of these.

Electronic devices, such as ultrasonic sound machines, can also be mains-operated, or run on batteries. These will obviously add an additional cost to your life, either in the form of added costs on your energy bill, or repeated dashes to the shops for more batteries.

Sprinkler systems are used by some homeowners, but foxes can actually appreciate this sharp burst of icy-cold water. You may encourage the critter to stick around, rather than leave. If the summer has been very hot, the fox may welcome the cool drink, and you might not even be able to use them if you live in an area where dry spells are becoming far too common.

There are plenty of so-called fox repellents that you can turn to, but you’ll usually find that the long-term cost of using them outweighs any benefits they could bring to the table. As we’ve already stated, more often than not, these homeowners that rely on repellents usually give in and call the professionals at some point anyway. When you think about, you're basically paying out for the job twice …

Go back to the Fox Removal page.