What caliber for....

G

grymster2007

New member
.... fox?

I was in the screen room just before dark last night and as I stood up to head into the house, the motion sensor light popped on. I stopped moving and watched while a fox walked along a retaining wall, a few feet outside the room. It then turned toward the house, hopped into a planter box, sniffed around for a moment and began digging. Then the thing squatted and peed… it peed in my Lemon Cucumbers! MY Lemon Cucumbers!!!

I’m aware that we’ve had fox running around the property (I think they’re Gray Fox) for several years now and normally that doesn’t bother me. They help to keep the rodents in check and they’re kinda cute and fun to watch. But this no-good, lowlife, degenerate vermin peed on my Lemon Cucumbers!!! This unwarranted, inexcusable and entirely unpardonable offense must not go unpunished!

Actually, I think the county would frown on my discharging a firearm on my property, so I’m wondering if a high velocity .22 pellet would suffice in dispatching this lowdown, illegitimate little reprobate that PEEEEEED ON MY LEMON CUCUMBERS!!!!:mad:
 
Considering your location, tear the lemon cucumbers out and plant some Cabernet vines :D.

Seriously though, a high velocity air rifle should do the trick.
 
before you kill it, or drive it away, a little urine on the vine is no big deal. its just some water, urea and a few other minerals, all of which is good for the soil.

However, kill the fox, and the bunnies, rodents and other critters which feed the fox will be back eating your veggies and fruit. So you can wash off a little fox urine, or you can cuss out the d*&^ Rabbits who are eating all your plants empty.

so its up to you, a little urine, or empty vines and plants.
 
I 22 LR will do the job but a 22 pellet might be edgy. What velocity and what weight? On the upside, it would be short range.

I'm not a big fan of foxes or cucumbers. Both make good targets IMHO. :)

Best of luck and good shooting.

S-
 
Peeing on your Lemon Cucumbers is a crime punishable by death. You ever pee in your yard or a neighbor's yard? In college I pee'd in many places. Guess I was just marking my turf! :)

I enjoy seeing most wild animals around my house with the exclusions of bears tearing up bird feeders or squirrels eating all my bird seed. I would also not like a coyote killing one of my kitties.
 
Capn' of the redneck security force of my place leaves me in position to help... I assure you that if you pee around the perimeter of the garden they won't like that area much... I prefer to walk and pee thus putting a continuous barrier. It takes a while to do this neatly keeping your britches and shoes dry. Pee to the side so you ain't walkin' in pee. Unfortunately some males will never have the *caliber* required to accomplish this.
As for the .22pellet... I would not try that without a well adjusted scope, known distance to the shot, full shot bag equipped shootin' bench. Distance should not exceed 20 yards for a clean head shot kill. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCE short of point blank expect a clean kill from a vitals shot. The rifle to do this needs to send the pellet out of the muzzle at 900+ fps IMHO.
Maybe they are regular cukes but the fox has been imparting the "lemony" flavor:barf: in which case leave him be.
Brent
 
It takes a while to do this while neatly keeping your britches and shoes dry. Pee to the side so you ain't walking in pee.
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Better idea......pee while walking backwards. Although you need to do it after dark (remember, you can't see where you're going, anyway), to escape any long, embarrassing explanations of what you think you're doing, and why!

Best idea, go ahead and shoot the SOB.
 
Elrod, The same reason folks use bow and sticks on deer... THE CHALLENGE...:D
It is always wise to remember "The night has a thousand eyes..."
Since I do not expect that the fox will sit still long enuff to get that elusive headshot... just pop it in the butt with bb gun a few times and it will avoid your place like the plague.
In KOOLIFERNA I would not want to risk the neighbors hearing a yelping fox or finding a pellet killed carcass. I bet the rope will be already across the limb when the mob heads out lookin' for the KILLER!
Brent
 
I'm with guntotin_fool on this one: Don't shoot. Fox pee, not to mention having the fox around, probably does wonders to keep away the critters that actually want to eat your lemon cucumbers. When my mother tried organic farming in Southern Ore. back in the 80's, she used to BUY lion manure and that of other predators, the bigger the better, to keep the bunnies out of her tomatoes and what-have-you. Heck, put out some fox chow for it -- or not, you may want it hungry.
 
It takes a while to do this neatly keeping your britches and shoes dry. Pee to the side so you ain't walkin' in pee. Unfortunately some males will never have the *caliber* required to accomplish this.
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I don't know dude... maybe I could dig up some galoshes or somethin'.

Maybe they are regular cukes but the fox has been imparting the "lemony" flavor in which case leave him be.
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So those ain't kosher pickles I been servin'?
 
They make a thing called a FENCE. Try one around the cukes. I'm with those that say a fox will cure many of your other pests.
 
Fencing will work with the European red foxes that were released in North America in the 1600s but not the native gray foxes. Gray foxes can climb trees and I've seen one climb over a 9 foot fence out of my chicken yard with a grown hen in its mouth. I didn't have electricity down at my chicken yard so I ended up removing the fox from the food chain because he kept climbing the fence even when I strung fencing at the top.

For keeping out gray foxes one can use 2 inch welded square weave for the basic fence but will need to add an electric wire about 2 feet up from the ground on the outside perimeter and another then along the top. For the fence bottom, fold about a foot of the bottom outward and bury it 2 or 3 inches in the ground, but that's mostly for opossums and armadillo.
 
grymster2007
I entirely missed this before. You said planter box! I don't know how big it is but constructing a barrier seems a possibility if you decide not to explore a higher velocity solution. If I seemed prejudiced against the cucumber, lemon, or otherwise, I apologize, one gardener to another.

It’s been my experience that our local red foxes are denizens of the forest while the grays do very well near human habitation. Red foxes I’ve encountered in the wild didn’t seem to be the rocket scientists of the animal world. I’ve had more than one almost walk over top of me while I was sitting in a ground blind.

The gray foxes I see locally always seem to be at a distance. Perhaps because they live so much closer to humans they become observant, learn our patterns etc. Frankly I think the gray fox is pretty intelligent animal based on some of the behaviors I or one of my family members observed over the years. On separate occassions gray foxes eventually cleared out every chicken two of my relatives had.

To make a long story short if you are dealing with a gray fox and if you try and shoot the critter and miss I think the fox will be educated immediately and therefore very hard to get a second shot at during anything like normal business hours (see my previous comment regarding chickens). I assume you could live trap one but what do you do with it if you get lucky? They are protected here so traps would be a no-no as would relocating one.

Repellants and barriers might be worth a try and perhaps cheaper in the long run. If you have a game camera it could help you watch the planter to see if your solution is working. Questions: do you have cats at-large in the area and could they also be using your box garden as a rest area? I wonder what attracted the fox in the 1st place.
Good luck,
S-
 
it peed in my Lemon Cucumbers!
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And you wondered why the lemon cucumbers had that tangy flavor?

Why, that's WAR!!!

Break out the 22LR and put one in his clockworks. Foxes rarely go over 15 lbs. Close up and personal (close enough to see them pee on the lemon cucumbers:D), a 22 LR will end his saga. If you want more power, 22 WMR, 223, 22-250, or 243. 375 H&H will also put him down and prevent a nasty charge.
 
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