07572270432emergency contact
0757227043207572270432The Fox Rescuers is an animal Charity based in Stockport which specialises exclusively in the rescue, rehabilitation and subsequent release of foxes. The rescue is run by Paul McDonald and Carol Gowrie who set up the rescue in June 2019 and who, combined, have over 12 years of hands-on experience with foxes. We offer an emergency helpline for foxes in need of emergency care who fall within our catchment area of the North West and West Midlands, along with an advice line for those outside of that area. For non-emergencies within our catchment we offer a trapping service for foxes with illnesses and injuries which need treatment and veterinary care. The Fox Unit (hospital) itself is based in a converted outbuilding on a piece of land attached to a residential property and is fitted with all the necessary equipment to house and care for 6 adult foxes at any one time, with some overflow accommodation when necessary.
Find out more about us
Posted on 26th February 2023
It's been a busy start to 2023 - we are averaging 1 emergency daily as well as regular call outs requiring traps for sick and injured foxes. Trapping, however, is always a last resort, which we will only carry out for the worst affected foxes. Currently in our care we have a fox (Tempura) who has had to have his left eye removed after a horrific injury in which the eye itself had become punctured and was beyond repair, two very badly affected mange foxes (Stroud and Buddy) and one fox (Phoenix) who is in with us being treated for mange and a huge abscess on her back end which was lanced and cleaned out by our vets. All foxes are doing well, and as of this post, we've admitted 11 adult foxes into the unit who require intensive care/a short stay with us in the first couple of months of 2023. As aforementioned, this is on top of the daily emergency cases we get in - in which foxes are in such a poor state the only thing we can do for them is to provide them with a peaceful end to their lives by getting them to our vets to be euthanised. We have also dealt with some foxes that we've trapped/picked up that have been able to be treated for mange with a long-lasting treatment and then released back home. All in all it's been our busiest start to a year since setting up, and we are just about to enter into the cub season...
Admittance date: 8th February 2023
We were recently alerted to a fox with a very nasty facial injury so we quickly got a trap in place the following day. Even with persistence and perseverance it took nearly two weeks to trap Tempura. After a visit to our a vets, a plan was formulated – there was some infection around the eye socket so Tempura was put on a course of antibiotics for a few days to minimise this before being admitted back into the vets for an exploratory surgical procedure. Tempura is a really big fox weighing over 7kg and as with all the really big foxes we’ve had in, is very easy to deal with. He is, however, very timid and frightened and as a result has had his head in the corner of his cage pretending he isn’t there.
During the second visit to our vet, Tempura had surgery to remove his damaged left eye and close the wound. The globe was ruptured as suspected so it wasn’t possible to save/repair his eye. Our vet was very pleased with how well the procedure went and that there was no longer any infection within the socket or the facial wound after the few days of antibiotics he’d had pre surgery.
A third visit to the vets, and they were very happy with his progress/he's left the eye alone. He has now finished on his antibiotic course, and we’ve monitored him for a couple of days after this to ensure infection isn’t going to return. So far so good, and at the time of writing this post, Tempura is due to be released back home tonight.