F a i t h f u l F O X E S

This is a tricky subject to discuss. While there are many opinions out on the internet, you need to make sure you consult someone who has experience. First and foremost we recommend you contact your veterinarian to verify the diet you are feeding your fox will work. 

That being said, we have been pet trainers, veterinary technicians, and have worked with many many foxes and exotic animals from tigers to flying squirrels. While foxes are omnivorous, they will choose meaty foods over herbivorous foods any day. Some feed their foxes raw diets, which is fine if you know what you are doing, and some feed a mixture of cooked foods, fruits and veggies, and dry food, which also is fine (and makes their feces and urine smell less). 

Foxes should NEVER EVER be fed a vegetarian or vegan diet. This will lead to liver, kidney, and heart failure. While the fox might seem healthy, over time the organs start to fail and they may not even show symptoms for years until the damage is irreversible and it is too late. They will die a painful death. If you want a pet that eats vegetarian or vegan foods, get a hamster or a bunny. All foxes, even if given a dry food, need high taurine in their diet, an essential amino acid, to help with their reflective retina called the tapetum in their eyes like cats have. This helps them see in the dark at night, since most foxes are nocturnal. 

Dry Foods:

If you are choosing a dry food as your base option, you want to make sure you choose a high quality one for your base food. When looking at the recipe and comparing ingredients, you want to make sure the first item on the list is meat. Deboned chicken, chicken, etc. are great examples. If something says 'chicken by-product,' that means that the scraps unfit for human consumption can be included and all ground up. This includes beaks, feathers, etc. Avoid any food that has meat by-products in it.  Also avoid foods with corn or corn gluten meal in them, as foxes would not normally eat corn or most grains in the wild. If given grains, such as cheerios, they should be given as treats and not as often.

Good examples of food brands are Blue Buffalo Wilderness, Fromm, Taste of the Wild, Merrick, and Castor & Pollux Organix. Usually brands sold exclusively in pet stores tend to be better brands than ones widely available in most stores. Selecting a dry dog food and adding taurine supplements would be best, either in a paste, powder, or tablet form, but some owners report success feeding a mixture of dog and cat dry kibble for the base food since cat kibble has more taurine.  

Dry foods should not be the sole source for diet for any fox. Fruits, vegetables, meal worms, crickets, should all be mixed into their diet as well, to keep as close as possible to their original diet. Personally the diet that worked for us was Blue Buffalo Wilderness as a base kibble offered at all times, thawed mixed chopped veggies with each meal, different fruits chopped every 2-3 days (you don't want to overdo fruits as they will lead to high sugar intake), and we gave mealworms, crickets, and raw pre-made patties as treats every so often. 

Raw Foods:

Some prefer to feed raw foods. There are a couple issues with raw food you should be aware of. Firstly, it has to be fresh, and should not be kept in the fridge for longer than 3 days if it doesn't have any preservatives in it, since harmful bacteria can grow any longer than 3 days. In the freezer it is fine for months like any dinner meat humans would eat. Once the food has been sitting out, if your fox does not eat it all right away, you should throw it out, as bacteria from the fox's mouth can grow and fester on the uneaten food in the bowl. The second issue with raw food is that it makes their stool and urine smell much worse. In an outdoor enclosure it may not be an issue, but inside the odor becomes quite pungent.