Foxes are omnivorous mammals that are known for their cunning hunting abilities and adaptability. As opportunistic eaters, foxes have a very diverse diet that includes small mammals, birds, reptiles, insects, plants, fruit and even fish. Salmon often make up a part of the diet of foxes that live near rivers, lakes or oceans where salmon can be found. But just how much do foxes like to eat salmon when it’s available? Let’s take a closer look at the salmon-loving nature of foxes.
An Overview of the Fox’s Diet
Foxes are members of the Canidae family, which also includes wolves, coyotes, jackals and domestic dogs. They have an elongated muzzle and a bushy tail which aids their agility and balance. There are over 40 species of foxes, red foxes being the most common.
Foxes are omnivores, meaning they eat both plant and animal matter. However, the majority of a fox’s diet consists of small animals including rodents, rabbits, birds, reptiles and insects. They also eat eggs, fruits, seeds, fungi and grass. Foxes that live near waterways and coasts will readily eat fish and crustaceans.
The red fox has the widest range of food sources. Their diverse diet allows them to adapt to a variety of habitats from mountains to deserts forests grasslands and even urban areas. Foxes are solitary hunters and hunt live prey primarily at night. During the day foxes usually rest in dens – holes in the ground, hollow logs or small caves.
Why Foxes Love to Eat Salmon
Salmon provide an excellent source of nutrition for foxes. Salmon are packed with protein essential fatty acids like omega-3 vitamins like B12, and minerals like potassium and selenium.
Here are some of the key reasons why foxes love feasting on salmon when available:
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High-quality protein Salmon contains over 20 grams of protein per 3 ounce serving, The protein in salmon supports growth and reproduction in foxes,
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Omega-3 fatty acids: Salmon is rich in omega-3s EPA and DHA which have anti-inflammatory effects and support the immune system in foxes.
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Vitamin B12: Salmon is one of the best natural sources of vitamin B12. B12 is important for nerve function and metabolism in foxes.
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Other nutrients: Salmon provides B vitamins, selenium, potassium, iron and magnesium – all nutrients foxes need to thrive.
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Readily available: For foxes living near waterways, salmon can be an easy, abundant food source at certain times of year.
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Delicious taste: Foxes are drawn to the rich, fishy flavor of salmon. The high fat content adds to its appeal as an energy-dense meal.
So in short, the high nutrient content, availability and palatability make salmon an ideal prey item for foxes.
Where Foxes Catch Wild Salmon
Foxes that live in close proximity to rivers, lakes and oceans take full advantage of seasonal salmon runs. Some of the prime spots where foxes catch wild salmon include:
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River streams and tributaries: Foxes catch salmon in shallow streams as they migrate upriver to spawn.
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Lakes: In lake systems, foxes hunt around tributaries and shorelines where salmon gather.
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Coastal regions: Foxes patrol beaches and tidepools hunting for salmon near river mouths along the coast.
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Fish ladder viewing areas: Foxes grab salmon as they jump up structures designed to help fish migration.
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Below dams/waterfalls: Foxes scavenge on salmon injured from leaping up obstructions.
So foxes hunt salmon directly in the water and along banks and shores. Cunning foxes also steal salmon from otters, eagles, bears and other fishers.
Some of the top salmon-rich regions where foxes live include British Columbia, Alaska, Northern California, Oregon, Washington and parts of Russia. But any fox habitats adjoining salmon waters offer seasonal salmon feasting.
How Foxes Catch and Eat Salmon
Foxes employ a range of skilled hunting techniques to catch salmon, focused on ambush and opportunism. Here are some of the main ways foxes capture salmon:
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Wading: Foxes will wade into shallow water to manually grab or bite salmon.
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Digging: Foxes excavate salmon that have spawned and died in shallow redds or nests.
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Waiting at migration points: Foxes stake out river mouths, tributaries and fish ladders to snatch salmon.
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Scavenging: Foxes scavenge dead or dying salmon post-spawning. They also steal salmon from other animals.
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Ice fishing: Foxes peer into rivers and lakes to spot and catch salmon below icy surfaces.
Once they’ve caught a salmon, foxes will carry it to shore or a quiet spot to eat it. Foxes use their incisors and carnassials to bite off chunks of flesh and bone until the salmon is completely consumed.
Foxes typically eat salmon raw right away. But some clever foxes have been known to cache excess salmon to buried stores for later. Caching reduces spoilage allowing foxes to enjoy salmon long after the migration.
Foxes Can Eat All Parts of Salmon
Foxes are adept at utilizing the entire salmon. They can and do eat all parts including:
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Flesh: Foxes will strip off and consume the fatty, protein-rich flesh which offers the best nutritional value.
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Skin: Salmon skin is filled with omega-3s. Foxes eat it when attached to the flesh.
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Bones: Foxes can digest small soft salmon bones as a source of calcium.
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Head: Salmon heads provide essential fatty acids and B vitamins.
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Eggs: Foxes eat salmon eggs from female fish as a tasty, protein-packed snack.
So foxes waste nothing from salmon. This allows them to reap the full spectrum of health benefits salmon provide.
How Much Salmon Do Foxes Eat?
Foxes are opportunistic predators so the amount of salmon they eat depends on availability. When salmon are running, they will eat them daily and salmon can make up the bulk of their diet. Foxes have healthy appetites, eating 1 to 2 pounds of food per day.
Some key factors determine how much salmon foxes consume:
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Migration season: More salmon equals more fox salmon meals. Out of season access declines.
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Location: Foxes near prime salmon waters have greater access than inland foxes.
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Competition: If other animals deplete stocks, it reduces a fox’s salmon consumption.
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Abundance: During salmon surpluses foxes gorge but may eat none when stocks are low.
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Caching: Foxes may eat less per sitting if burying some for later.
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Health: Sick foxes or nursing mothers eat salmon as an easily digested food source.
So while salmon can dominate a fox’s diet at peak migration, it will be more sporadic when salmon aren’t running. Foxes resume hunting small mammals, birds etc at other times of year.
Benefits of Salmon for Foxes
Here are some of the key benefits foxes reap from eating salmon:
- Excellent source of protein to build muscle and tissue
- Omega-3 fatty acids reduce inflammation and boost brain function
- Nutrient density – packed with vitamins B, D, selenium and phosphorus
- Healthy fats provide energy for warmth and quick power for hunting
- Abundant when migrating so easy for foxes to gorge and fatten up
- Helps foxes maintain shiny, healthy coats
- Boosts reproductive health – vital for breeding foxes
- Anti-aging effects of omega-3s keep foxes lively in later life
- Supports growth and development of pups and juveniles
The rich composition of salmon transfers to foxes. This makes salmon a prized meal and ideal food source.
Risks of Eating Too Much Salmon for Foxes
Salmon can make up a large portion of a fox’s diet, especially in salmon-rich regions. But foxes should not eat solely salmon long term. Some potential risks of excessive salmon consumption include:
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Nutritional imbalance: Too much salmon could lead to deficiencies in nutrients like vitamin E and magnesium.
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Contaminants: Built-up toxins like mercury in salmon may pose health risks with overconsumption.
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Ichthyophoniasis: This fungal infection linked to raw fish can infect foxes.
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Thiamine deficiency: Excess salmon containing the enzyme thiaminase could cause this condition.
To avoid issues, foxes should vary their diets and not solely eat salmon for extended periods. Some dietary diversity ensures foxes get a broad nutrient profile.
Do Pet Foxes Eat Salmon?
Can pet foxes eat salmon? The answer is yes! Farmed salmon or wild caught salmon are perfectly fine occasional treats for pet foxes. Owners can offer raw, cooked or canned salmon. But salmon should be
Silver Fox Identification and Management CPD
It is thought that a wild fox eats about 400g of food every night, which is about the same as a young rabbit or 5–10 rodents, depending on its size. Like most other dogs, foxes have relatively small stomachs for their sizes. They eat about 10% of their body weight, while dogs and other dogs eat about 20% of their body weight. Over a course of a year, wild foxes are thought to consume around 150 kg of food.
Foxes eat mostly meat, but they also eat a lot of other things, too. This is why they are sometimes called opportunistic or omnivorous carnivores.
- Rodents, Squirrels & Rabbits
- Birds, Wildfowl & Eggs
- Amphibians & Small lizards
- Insects, Earthworms & Grubs
- Fruits, Nuts & Berries,
- Grasses, Herbs & Vegetables
- Grains, Acorns, Fungi, Shoots & Seeds
- Commercial Cat & Dog Food
- Human Food Waste
Even though foxes eat many different kinds of foods, it’s important to remember that their bodies and digestion are still mostly designed to break down small ground-dwelling prey.
Feeding a captive fox;
Foxes like to eat little and often and self-regulate their diets by caching any excess food. If you notice that your fox is caching a lot of food or not retrieving cached items within 24 to 48 hours, you will need to change your diet and routine to cut down on waste and get your fox more interested in food and enrichment.
For consistency’s sake and to help with training, you should feed your fox twice a day, with breakfast and tea. These meals should be small, plain, well-balanced, and regular. The base of the diet should be a complete dry diet with raw meat and cooked vegetables; for young foxes, use complete puppy or kitten food. A healthy and well-balanced diet will include a lot of prey. To keep your foxes entertained all day, it’s best to feed them this part of their diet as food enrichment. Basics include;.
- Things that birds eat, like chicks, whole chickens and game birds, mice, rats, rabbits, and more
- Invertebrates;Crickets, locusts, waxworms, mealworms andearthworms, etc.
- Eggs; Quail, duck, goose and chicken, etc.
- Raw meat (on or off the bone; no pork because of the risk of roundworms)
- Occasionally liver, kidneys, and heart should be fed to dogs as raw organ meat (a diet of at least 10% organ meat is recommended for dogs).
- Cooked meats (without bones, pork is OK if cooked thoroughly)
- Commercial diets—Both wet and dry high-quality complete diets for cats and dogs can be used. Badger also makes its own food. For people in the US, Zupreem and Mazouri make full diets for exotic cats and dogs.
- Fresh fruits and berries (take out the seeds and cores of the fruits; no rhubarb, citrus, or cobs).
- vegetables, cooked and raw (but not mushrooms, onions, garlic, or potatoes that aren’t ripe yet)
Occasional treats can include;
- Honey
- Natural yogurt
- Nuts and seeds (no macadamia nuts, chestnuts or fruit seeds)
- You can feed your pet dehydrated and dried fruits, berries, and vegetables. Remember that the nutrients are concentrated in foods that are lighter, so feed them the dried weight equivalent of the fresh fruit.
- Cottage Cheese
- Coconut oil
- Maple syrup
- Marmite (high in salt, so small amounts only)
- Bovril (high in salt, so small amounts only)
- Unsalted and unsweetened popcorn
- Unsalted and unsweetened porridge
- Fish like tuna or salmon can make foxes sick if they eat too much of it.
- Blue, pinto, and black beans that have been cooked (be careful, not all beans are safe).
- Cooked chickpeas and lentils
Carnivore care is also available in the UK as a supplement, for foxes that need extra nutritional support.
Example of a daily fox diet for an adult fox, from a UK fox breeder:
- x2 day old chicks or a raw chicken thigh
- x1 400g tin of wet dog food
- 1 piece of dry cat or dog biscuit (check the packaging for weight instructions).
- One-half of an apple, one-half of a carrot, and a few blueberries
- Dog chocolate buttons and mealworms given as an occasional treat
Farm Fox Suggested Diet Composition;
Calories Foxes Require to Ensure Maintenance;
The amount of energy an adult fox needs to stay healthy is called Metabolic Energy Requirement for Maintenance (MEm). It is calculated when the temperature is neutral. It shows how much energy is needed to get food and digest it so that the body stays at a healthy weight.
The table below shows the results of studies that looked into how much energy silver foxes need and how many calories they need each day (Cal/kg/day);
What Foxes Cant Eat;
Foxes are canids, but not canines. Their food needs are unique to their genus, the vulpine, which has many traits in common with cats. They are the catlike canid. Not many studies have been done on foxes and food poisoning, but like dogs and cats, foxes can’t handle a lot of different foods. One general rule is that you shouldn’t give your fox anything that dogs and cats can’t have. Even though some of the foods below have been fed to foxes without any bad effects, it is best not to tempt fate until the ways that pain is caused are known.
Another important thing to keep in mind is that raw oily fish shouldn’t make up more than 10% of a fox’s diet, because this can cause a potentially fatal B1% vitamin deficiency called Chostek paralysis.
Do Not Feed Foxes;
- Rawhide: They don’t have the facial muscles that dogs do, so they can’t chew bones or gnaw on rawhide.
- Processed Foods: This type of food is high in salt and can make foxes sick in the long run.
- Not-cooked pork: In the UK, foxes can get Trichinella from this.
- Cooked Bones—Cooked bones are weak and break easily, which can lead to many serious health problems.
- 10% of oily fish—this can make foxes lack vitamin B1 if they eat too much of it.
Foods Unsafe for Dogs by Lili Chin, also applies to foxes;
Legacy of the Silver Fox
How Foxes Assisted in the Formulation of Complete Diets and the Development of Scientific Research:
The Fromm Brothers began their fur farm with 12 pairs of silver foxes in 1921, by 1925 they had began developing their own foods and treats. In 1933, as a result of their attention to the dietary needs of their foxes and the development of the first formulated diets for canids, the Fromm Brothers were the first farm to produce a litter of eleven silver fox pups (in contrast wild foxes have 4-5 pups and the odds of getting just one silver are very slim). They credit their success to their formulated diets and superior nutrition, as a result of their success a boom in the production of commercial fox diets began.
Today the Fromm Brothers no longer farm fur animals, but they still produce pet food to this day.
In 1921, Purina changed the way pet food was made by making pellet-shaped feed instead of formulated and complete diets. One commercially made food for fox farmers was called “Purina Fox Chow.” By 1932, it had become a main food source for lab rodents. Laboratory rodents were fed commercial fox diets instead of the unhealthy milk and lettuce diets they were originally on. This greatly improved the animals’ health and mortality rates and the reliability of the research.
Foxes store or bury extra food to eat later when food is scarce. This is like a fridge for foxes. It is important to let your fox act in this way because it is a natural way for them to survive. It helps them keep a steady food supply all year, even when the seasons change and there is competition.
Most of the time, caching just means putting food in a carefully chosen hole and lightly covering it with soil until it is needed. Some foxes will also use stumps or other similar structures, and a lot of pet foxes will hide food under beds or on couches.
Scent marks can be made before or after the cache has been emptied with poop or urine, depending on what’s inside. This behavior usually happens after a cache has been cleaned out, but it can also happen before. It’s a chemical signal to the fox that it has been there before, so it doesn’t have to waste time following the same false trails. Foxes keep their environment clean by burying food they don’t want. If they bury it and then poop or pee on it right away, it’s probably waste and not a snack for later.
Because foxes will also scent mark water sources, owners should get a raised bowl that won’t tip over and change the water every day. Ponds and water troughs work well in enclosures and can be used along with food enrichment. As much as 66% of a fox’s water needs are met by its food, with the remaining 44% coming from specific water sources. Farmed foxes have a water consumption rate of 100-600 ml/day.
Foxes are known to engage in two types of caching behaviour;
- Saving for a rainy day (larder caching): a few large cache sites with lots of items and close locations that are often actively defended Usually linked to lots of resources that can be used when food is scarce
- Spread out your caches so that you don’t put all of your eggs in one basket. Store food in both single and multiple sites that are spread out. This keeps resources from going to other animals and makes sure that at least some of the food will still be there when the fox returns to its caches.
What is the likelihood of a fox ever returning to its cache?
Pet fox caching food rewards during a training session;
It is through play that young foxes develop the coordination and timing necessary to become a successful hunters. They learn to adjust their speed to a moving target, and to gauge distance when pouncing. Playing with food gives young foxes the opportunity to learn the necessary skills for hunting through practical experience.
When babies are in the wild, their mothers will bring home dead prey and eat it in front of them until the babies are old enough to join in. Over time she will begin to supply partially dead prey, showing them how to finish a kill. The young foxes keep learning how to hunt by going after slow-moving, hurt animals until they are good enough to go hunting on their own.
Like young foxes in the wild, young foxes that live as pets will play with food or toys to improve their wild hunting skills. By giving your fox food that is different from its normal food, you will give it the chance to develop its natural behaviors, even though it won’t have any live prey to practice on.
Foxes are solitary hunters, which means they are not as willing to share food or resources as “pack animals” are. This means foxes can be very possessive over food and will often vocalise and display agonistic behaviours if they are approached when eating or if their cached supplies are approached. This behaviour is considered normal for foxes but it is similar to food aggression seen in dogs and can be remedied and managed with desensitisation and counter-conditioning techniques and by wearing animal handling gloves during the first weeks of training.
When foxes are hungry and can smell a tasty treat, their instincts take over, and they are willing to beg, whine, and push to get to where the smell is coming from. This can make them tense and mean. If those don’t work, they might use harsher methods, so they need to be trained over and over again around food. Never give in to their begging because it will only make them want to do it more, which will make you reward them for it.
There is a reason why people call foxes “sly.” They have almost made food theft an art form. Once they’ve stolen something, a fox will not give it back and may even bite to protect their prize. This is not a good habit for your fox to have because it could lead them to something that is not safe for them to eat. To stop this from happening, make sure that food is out of reach, counters are clean, and bins can’t be reached.
Make sure your fox has a varied, healthy diet and lots of food enrichment (on a rota and rotation schedule to keep it interested in eating). Also, make sure your fox’s main meal times are regular. Create a distraction or teach your fox something else to do with their time to keep them out of the kitchen during meal times. Don’t forget to reward them for not bothering you while you are cooking or eating!
To get back things that your fox has stolen, teach it the “leave it” command and use distraction and counter-conditioning, just like you would with a dog.
For safety reasons, a dig box or sand pit is necessary for foxes. Also, make sure your fox has a safe place to hide the food you give them if they want to. Your fox should get used to being near the food cache before you take it away, but if it’s been there for more than 48 hours, take it away when they can’t see you. Avoid desensitization and counter-conditioning techniques. This will ensure your fox learns to understand they have little need to guard resources.
For everyone’s safety, using these methods will make sure that the natural behaviors foxes show around food can be managed and lowered or eliminated.
The Feeding Behaviour of Farmed Silver Foxes;
Researchers who looked at how farmed silver foxes react to food found that the way the food is presented can change how the foxes react. They found that when there is too much food available, people’s eating habits change and they are less interested in making food more interesting.
What Do Foxes Eat: Complete List of What Foxes Hunt, and Eat
FAQ
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