Do Red Fox families share dens? (1 Viewer)

Hello All.

I'm lucky enough to watch a foxes den from my living room window - its 2/3rds of a mile away so I need my scope! As the weather's nice at present, the cubs are all out playing in the daytime. However, although I've only ever seen one adult at any one time, there are definately at least seven cubs, four look bigger and are red, and three are smaller and darker. Could this be two seperate litters sharing one den, or is it one large litter?

I watched the same den last year and there were only three cubs then.

Whatever the answer is, its still good to watch them.

Red foxes can live singly or in groups, depending on food supply, territory size and so on.
However, even if they live in groups it is normally only the dominant female within the group that has a litter. Two litters sharing a den would be highly unusual; but not impossible.
That can happen for example in the unusual case that the dominant female has died and a new dominance hierarchy within the group is not fixed during mating time; so that there isn´t one dominant female at that time.