When the sun gets up early, so do I, and one morning long ago I saw the sweetest family story taking place outside my bedroom windows. A mother fox, also known as a vixen, was leading her kits across my yard and down the hill into the buckwheat field. She was taking the youngsters on a morning hunt to teach them how to be fully functioning foxes. The little ones were probably ten to 12 weeks old.
Three small foxes obediently followed Mom with their red tails raised high like flags. They marched along like little soldiers, while at least one of the litter broke ranks and wandered around looking for all kinds of interesting things to explore. I saw her leaping at mysterious movements in the grass and nosing around some dirt that moles had flung up from their tunnels.
Red foxes normally have litters of four or five kits. I could see four at one time that morning, but there may have been five. It’s easy to hide on a farm! My fox family lived in a den under some big pine trees beside the north hayfield. The entrance was dug among the roots of the trees and led to the den where the babies had been born. Year after year, I could stay a safe distance away and watch a new litter of foxes playing among the roots and scrambling around the trees as they tussled with each other.
Fox kits don’t open their eyes until they’re about two weeks old, but by the time they’re two months old they’re already beginning to learn to be predators. By the time a fox is six months old, it looks much like an adult. The teenage foxes out on a hunting party at 4:30 am that morning weren’t as big as adults yet and Mom knew they still had more to learn. So she was taking them on another practice hunt.
By the time a fox has its first birthday, though, it can survive on its own. This is when foxes leave home and go off to dig their own dens and make their own families.
Carol Harker
Simply by paying attention to the life going on around us, we can learn to appreciate God’s creation. If you’d like to discover more about how foxes grow and develop during that first year, check out Fox Cubs 101: Growth Stages, Feeding, & Care | Pet Keen.