Four fox kits exploring their new home in the magic tree den

Mama fox moved her four kits into the magic tree den in the middle of the night. It was our first sighting of a fox family in 2020 and we were very excited to see them all. The parents had checked out the den the day before, so we weren't completely surprised at their arrival, but we were certainly delighted.
The den has plenty of space and a long hollow log entrance, and the kits seemed to enjoy playing and snoozing inside the log. The video shows all four kits running around on their wobbly little legs near the entrance, with Mama trying to keep tabs on them - clearly a full time job.
We think the kits are probably about 5 weeks old, but we have no way to be sure.
For more great critter videos and photos please visit texasbackyardwildlife.com.
#foxkits #texaswildlife #backyardwildlife

[@inkydragon27]

Thankyou for the beautiful fox footage! :D

[@TexasBackyardWildlife]

They're cute little things aren't they? We were looking at some old videos of them again last night and were reminded of how beautiful they were. We're looking forward to next spring when we hope we have some more pups to watch.

[@inkydragon27]

@@TexasBackyardWildlife I've ben lucky enough to watch red fox kits grow up, but I never did figure out where the heck their den was, I always wondered what chaos their poor mum put up with at then den site! Thankyou for sharing your wonderful footage, foxes are so wonderful :)

[@TexasBackyardWildlife]

@@inkydragon27 The interesting thing about this family was that the papa fox did most of the work of keeping an eye on the little ones. And even more interesting was that another male fox also helped out (we called him the uncle). Mama would swoop in and feed everyone and but the papa fox was always there making sure everyone was safe.

[@inkydragon27]

@@TexasBackyardWildlife That's really cool to know that they have extended family networks! I wonder if the uncle was a brother, or had had a litter with that mum in the past. Fascinating fascinating stuff :O

[@TexasBackyardWildlife]

We have never found a good source for reliable information about the gray foxes so we don't know if this is normal or not. It would make sense for this helpful "uncle" to be related to the pups in some way, as you say. We've never seen this kind of behavior before, but we only have the privilege of watching one or two families per year so our experience is very limited. This family didn't conform to the usual stereotypes at all - mama was a bit of a dilettante, she would come by to nurse, and also seemed to initiate most of the moves from den to den, but we didn't see a lot of her; papa was utterly devoted and always around; and uncle was a supportive presence who helped supervise playtime and occasionally brought food. Our assumptions about "normal" or "nuclear" fox families were pretty much tipped on their heads by these guys.

[@djryan8944]

Live just southeast of downtown block or so east of 35 and have a lot of videos of foxes on my security cams.

[@TexasBackyardWildlife]

You lucky person.

[@traviscoates6878]

Are all 4 pups still alive?

[@TexasBackyardWildlife]

We don't know. They seemed to survive to adulthood, but it's really hard to tell the individuals apart so when we see the foxes in the backyard we don't know who we're looking at. We do have lot of foxes around and we hope these little guys are among them.