Nature Warning

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Boarworld

Junior Guinea Pig
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Hi there,

Something for newer owners to consider and a reminder for the rest of us.

It’s incredibly dry in the moment in the UK, and wild animals such as Foxes and birds of prey are hungry. Please, even if your piggies have been moved indoors due to the heat, don’t leave them unattended with house doors and windows open, or outdoors if their cage/run isn’t properly secured.

I’ve just read a really upsetting story online about an owner who had moved her pigs indoors in an open top run due to the heat who’d left her back door open for a breeze. She went upstairs for a couple of minutes and left them. When she got back a fox had taken one pig and was on its way back for the second. Luckily she managed to scare it off but they lost the first pig.

My three girls live indoors but have been moved to a cooler part of the house in a large but open top run instead of their normal C&C which has a roof. We have no other pets, mine aren’t climbers, and my children are older, so generally they’re perfectly safe and secure. I’m also at home pretty much full time so they’re not unattended much. But I do, like most people, move around the house and I haven’t even thought to close the back door or shut widely open windows.

Outdoor pigs need to be secure too. Birds of prey aren’t particularly scared of humans! I had the shock of my life this week when I was in my back garden hanging washing and watched a red kite swoop down at the speed of light not two metres away from me and scoop up a small white school sock that one of my children had left on the grass. Poor kite would’ve been highly disappointed at its cottony breakfast… but honestly, it was so fast if that was a small pet then there is no way I could’ve stopped it.

Cats, foxes, big birds… they’re all a risk to piggies and the wild ones will eat whatever they can at the moment when other food is so scarce.

Don’t let your little spuds become a hungry animals lunch!
 
Yes, I know of two bunnies who were killed by a fox recently 😔 Many foxes have cubs or are recovering from feeding cubs, so they are indeed very hungry. The worms and beetles they feed on are harder to dig up now. City foxes are used to scavenging bins and litter really close to people, so going through windows is just a short step from that 🙁 Thank you for the reminder 🙏❤️
 
Wow! I'd not thought of that! I'll keep the Conservatory door closed now and the window in the garage. Thanks for the warning. I live near a Heath and there are foxes in my garden day and night. My piggies are kept in the garage. They are safely locked in a hutch at night and are in an open top run in the garage during the day.
 
It honestly didn’t occur to me to be concerned about foxes in the daytime but they’re becoming more and more used to humans and less scared of us. I’m on the outskirts of village surrounded by countryside and I often hear them at night (they’re unmistakable and they’re really loud!), we have all sorts of lovely nature all around us. But the piggies are so vulnerable, for all of their strutting dominance with their own kind, they’re pretty much defenceless against other animals.

I was amazed at my red kite visitor. Beautiful bird, but huge and amazingly fast. We have squirrels everywhere which are usually what they’re after, but obviously a little white sock looked like some nice food from a height! It’s not the first time I’ve had one in the garden, we had a baby one fly into the kitchen window a few months ago as it was aiming to land on one of my indoor plants on the window sill and wasn’t experienced enough to notice it was flying into glass. Poor thing gave itself a good bump, but was soon up and off again!
 
Betsy said:
Wow! I'd not thought of that! I'll keep the Conservatory door closed now and the window in the garage. Thanks for the warning. I live near a Heath and there are foxes in my garden day and night. My piggies are kept in the garage. They are safely locked in a hutch at night and are in an open top run in the garage during the day.
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Yes, better to be safe than sorry ❤️
 
Wiebke said:
Urban foxes are sadly becoming more bold and more of a risk.
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Not that I live in the UK, so things could be different, but there have been urban foxes in my town of pop. 45,000 for about 20 years now. They were particularly prevalent in one neighbourhood and so many people's guinea pigs and rabbits 'disappeared', the poor little things. In most cases I think because their outside housing or outside runs weren't secure enough.

At some point or other, the foxes in that one neighbourhood 'disappeared', although it's illegal for just anybody to kill foxes. A few years ago, I saw a fox sauntering around the centre of town in the early evening, even though there were lots of people about.
 
Here in England no one has guns except criminals or (legally) people who are licenced to have them and store them very securely - which usually means farmers and the like. The general public can’t just have them it’s really strictly controlled and monitored. Fox hunting for sport here is illegal, now.

I’m in the Cotswolds area of the UK so surrounded by countryside and farmland. Our farmers do legitimately shoot foxes on the regular because they are enormous pests and do huge damage to their livestock. They’ll take down sheep and lambs, they obviously like chicken, ducks and geese for dinner and they can cause nasty injuries to cows and even horses…though they’d probably come off worse in a fight with large animals who can kick hard.

In more urban areas though there won’t be (or shouldn’t be!) access to guns for people to keep the fox population under control. I’m not sure on the rules in terms of poison etc, Councils here will come and put down rat poison if it’s needed in residential areas but I don’t think they’re allowed to bait animals like foxes. Badgers, for example, are heavily protected here. Even farmers aren’t allowed to destroy their sets.

Cities have tons of urban foxes who’re hungry and scavenge amongst humans and our rubbish.

I have a Ring doorbell and had an alert overnight a while ago. When I checked the recording it was two foxes strutting very openly up my garden path, sniffing around my front door and having a rummage around my bins. We use bin locks here, but I have no doubt if we didn’t they’d be in there if they could knock them over. They’re clever and resourceful creatures!

I love living amongst nature, there isn’t much nicer than sitting in my garden watching the birds and squirrels and we have birds that seem to come back to nest year after year. However as nice as nature is, it’s brutal, it’s entirely survival of the fittest… and that means our defenceless little piggies need us humans to look out for them and defend them against these predators 🩷
 
I started to put my food waste bin in either my black bin or green recycling bin (depending on which one had the room) years ago because if I left it out, a fox would get hold of it and empty it all over the back garden taking the tasty bits and leaving the rest in tiny pieces for me to pick up which wasn't very pleasant as the fox usually left its "calling card" among the debris of my food waste bin.
 
Boarworld said:
Here in England no one has guns except criminals or (legally) people who are licenced to have them and store them very securely - which usually means farmers and the like. The general public can’t just have them it’s really strictly controlled and monitored. Fox hunting for sport here is illegal, now.

I’m in the Cotswolds area of the UK so surrounded by countryside and farmland. Our farmers do legitimately shoot foxes on the regular because they are enormous pests and do huge damage to their livestock. They’ll take down sheep and lambs, they obviously like chicken, ducks and geese for dinner and they can cause nasty injuries to cows and even horses…though they’d probably come off worse in a fight with large animals who can kick hard.

In more urban areas though there won’t be (or shouldn’t be!) access to guns for people to keep the fox population under control. I’m not sure on the rules in terms of poison etc, Councils here will come and put down rat poison if it’s needed in residential areas but I don’t think they’re allowed to bait animals like foxes. Badgers, for example, are heavily protected here. Even farmers aren’t allowed to destroy their sets.

Cities have tons of urban foxes who’re hungry and scavenge amongst humans and our rubbish.

I have a Ring doorbell and had an alert overnight a while ago. When I checked the recording it was two foxes strutting very openly up my garden path, sniffing around my front door and having a rummage around my bins. We use bin locks here, but I have no doubt if we didn’t they’d be in there if they could knock them over. They’re clever and resourceful creatures!

I love living amongst nature, there isn’t much nicer than sitting in my garden watching the birds and squirrels and we have birds that seem to come back to nest year after year. However as nice as nature is, it’s brutal, it’s entirely survival of the fittest… and that means our defenceless little piggies need us humans to look out for them and defend them against these predators 🩷
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The rules about poison are set out in gov.uk, it is highly illegal and carries a jail term and an unlimited fine. Foxes are not classified as vermin and are protected from cruelty just as are all other animals.
 
We have a lot of foxes here, they come into our garden to drink from the bowls I have originally for the birds and to pass through, we are like Piccadilly Circus with the foxes and cats that go one way or the other. We are quite happy to share our garden with the foxes, it was after all once part of their field and they keep our rat population down. They do get hit by cars, we are not sure how many of these road deaths are deliberate but I'm sure some could have been avoided. I know of 2 deaths recently one was a this years cub which is so sad.
 
piggieminder said:
We have a lot of foxes here, they come into our garden to drink from the bowls I have originally for the birds and to pass through, we are like Piccadilly Circus with the foxes and cats that go one way or the other. We are quite happy to share our garden with the foxes, it was after all once part of their field and they keep our rat population down. They do get hit by cars, we are not sure how many of these road deaths are deliberate but I'm sure some could have been avoided. I know of 2 deaths recently one was a this years cub which is so sad.
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The cubs are very cute. They play and play with great enthusiasm 🦊
 
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