Young gray fox kits look nothing like the gray fox adults that they will, god willing, grow up to be. They’re dark brown, for a start, and their noses wouldn’t look out of place on a Pekingese. At some magical point around the 6-week mark, these “pups” begin to look like foxes; their chocolate-brown coats turn gray, with orange around the neck, chest, and legs, and that pug-nosed snout elongates and becomes foxy.
Frankie, the wild baby fox in this video, was probably about a month old when we first met him, so he was more pug puppy than fox, and he was still a little unsteady on his feet. He was a singleton – no brothers or sisters – and he was clearly the apple of his mother’s eye.
He and mama fox lived in our underground tree stump den – a natural hollow under an old live oak stump that has 3 of Dan’s cameras in it.
Fox mothers are often quite brisk – they’re not the cuddliest of creatures. They have things to do and places to be and “If you want to nurse, little one, then you’d best get on with it because I’m in a hurry”. But Frankie’s mother had all the time in the world for her baby. She lay around in the den with him, nursing, snuggling, and taking long naps, and the smile never left her face.
We watched Frankie and his mother for a precious and sadly brief 9 days in late May/early June 2026. They sheltered inside the den and played in the area right outside it. We never did figure out who mama’s mate was, but she was sometimes visited in the den by our resident matriarch and patriarch, Dolly and Pale Fox, and greeted them with wild excitement whenever they showed up to say hello. Perhaps they were mama’s parents or grandparents?
Frankie had an odd bulge in his lower belly, which Dan and I thought was probably an umbilical hernia (not uncommon in puppies). Umbilical hernias are usually no problem – they often heal on their own as a puppy ages. However, perhaps this one managed to trap a loop of intestine? We’ll never really know what happened, but in the early hours of Wednesday June 3rd Frankie became obviously unwell, and at around 5:30 am he crawled into an off-camera crevice in the den and died.
We are visited by lots of gray foxes in our backyard but the day that Frankie died, aside from mama fox, who came to say a final goodbye to her beloved baby once Dan had extracted him from the den, they all stayed away. They knew that they had lost someone precious. And so did we.
#texasbackyardwildlife