44 COMMISSION OF CONSERVATION 



The flesh diet of foxes is horse meat, cheap beef, calves, 

 ofeV butcher scraps (livers, hearts, heads, etc.), fish (both cured 



and fresh), rabbits, groundhogs, mice, rats, birds, squirrels, 

 lobster bodies and old cattle and sheep. The flesh is usually fed raw 

 but some feeders parboil it. It is salted slightly when parboUed, 

 only a small amount of salt being used. Frequently carcasses are 

 salted down in casks, and, when required for food, a portion is freshened 

 by placing it in running water for a day or two. Some of the finest 

 foxes seen were fed with this kind of food and seemed to be in very 

 thrifty condition, possibly because of being free from worms. Some 

 ranches have cold storage plants, and keep the meat packed with ice. 

 No storage houses similar to bait-freezers are used as yet, but the 

 bait-freezer at Rustico, P.E.I., might serve as a model for such a house. 

 Neither has any mechanical refrigeration of any kind been attempted 

 on any ranch although local cold storage plants are extensively used. 



Old cattle and horses are kept on the hoof and slaughtered from 

 time to time as required. As foxes have been known to die of tuber- 

 culosis, cattle should be subjected to the tuberculin test or, at least, 

 examined for tubercules after killing. The amount of meat fed should 

 be about one-fourth pound a day and, if any of it is buried by the fox, 

 this amount should be decreased. 



The non-flesh food consists of biscuits, yeast bread, hoe 

 Diet'^^^^ bread, vegetables, porridge, grass, berries, apples, milk 



and eggs. Patent dog biscuits are fed with good results, 

 one ranch using only Spratt's biscuits, with milk and water, as food. 

 The best ordinary biscuit is the plain hardtack. It is probable that 

 hard-baked non-yeast bread is better than leavened bread. Bread 

 is more relished if grease drippings are poured upon it. Tallow has 

 been used with good success as a butter on hoe bread. 



Any rations are liable to fail unless the food is served properly. 

 The dishes should be frequently scalded and scrubbed and kept scrupu- 

 lously clean. The water vessel should be fastened to the fence with 

 wire hooks so that the foxes cannot climb over it. The food must be 

 withheld when foxes are observed to bury or hide it. In frosty wea- 

 ther in April or May, as frozen meat would kill the young foxes, 

 it is necessary to feed it warm or parboiled in such weather. If one 

 fox dominates the other and takes too large a share of the food, a large 

 quantity must be supplied at night and removed when both have had 

 enough, e.g., a cow's head may be left in a pen for several days to 

 furnish the flesh diet. 



