It happens during the coldest part of the year in Charlottesville and Richmond, Virginia. At a time when darkness pervades the forest and when everything seems brittle. Yet during this inhospitable period of late January or early February red foxes begin to court.

After a gestation period of approximately 52 days, the kits (baby foxes) are born. In the Charlottesville and Richmond areas this occurs during late March or early April. The litter on the average contains five whining, hungry mouths; but larger litters are not uncommon.

During June the parents frequently takes one or several of the pups on exploratory trips away from their denning site. At first the parents lead the kits away and return with them. Later the kits return on their own. Gradually they become more confident, venture forth slightly farther each day, and spend less time at their den. It seems that a combination of boredom and hunger eventually drives the fox kits away from the den site, whereupon they start a predatory, scavenging life of their own.

Early last summer, Virginia Professional Wildlife Removal Services, a company serving the Richmond and Charlottesville areas, received a frantic call from a lady who described her pets being attacked by “coyotes”. Although coyotes are common in Virginia, my first thought was that we were dealing with foxes teaching their young to hunt. This suspicion was reinforced when I observed a red fox cross the road as I approached the customer’s home.

After scouting the area and finding no coyote sign, I decided to set traps in an attempt to catch these yet unidentified canids that were attacking her pets. Upon completing my trap sets and as I was attempting to leave, the home owner screamed out, “There’s one of the coyotes now”. I turned to observe a young fox, standing not 30 yards away, watching us–it suddenly ran off, presumably by the same route it had arrived. I explained to the now very anxious home owner that the critter she identified as a coyote was in fact a young fox probably learning to hunt. I felt that there was a mother fox with a den nearby the property, and that she was regularly taking her young on hunting expeditions.

As is turned out, I was right. Virginia Professional Wildlife Removal Services ended up trapping and removing the mother fox and four of her young from the lady’s property. Shown below is one of the young red foxes we trapped and removed. Another satisfied customer from the Charlottesville and Richmond areas.

Virginia Professional Wildlife Removal Services, LLC. provides fox trapping, fox control and fox removal, as well as, pest control, pest removal, animal control, animal removal, critter control, critter removal, wildlife control and wildlife removal in Charlottesville and Richmond, Virginia. Licensed and insured. Residential and commercial services available 24/7. Some of the critters we handle include squirrels, raccoons, beavers, bats, skunks, snakes, groundhogs, birds, opossums, moles, voles, foxes and coyotes. Call us for an appointment at (434) 270-0488 or toll-free at (888) 893-1975.