1.0 Fennec Fox

[JLC]

Silver Fox. Not a fennec fox, but a fox nonetheless, and they are domesticated. i personally thought it was interesting to read about their domestication process.

http://www.sibfox.com/


there was also a tv special on this. i cant for the life of me remember the name or the channel of the show. but it was pretty cool.

Look at those horrible little cages those guys are living in!

I don't know what any tv special might have said about these, but calling them "domesticated" is a HUGE stretch. "Tame"....maybe. I have my doubts about even that. But an animal like that is a looong way from being domesticated.

[wolfy-hound]

Look at those horrible little cages those guys are living in!

I don't know what any tv special might have said about these, but calling them "domesticated" is a HUGE stretch. "Tame"....maybe. I have my doubts about even that. But an animal like that is a looong way from being domesticated.

I'm not sure what "little cages" you saw. I don't see anything that shows the size of their cages at all.

They did have some "domesticated" foxes. They bred the tamest of the tamest for several generations and ended up with foxes that acted very domesticated and their ears tended to be more floppy. All domestication process is, is breeding for tameness. If they act completely domesticated, then what stops them from getting the label of domesticated species? Not just training, they bred specifically for tameness, instead of for color or coat. Just tameness and handleability. There was a couple papers on them at some point years ago, but I haven't seen anything new in years about it.

[babyknees]

That fox is so cute! Is the biting just being playful, being aggressive or is it something they get over as they become more tame/get to know you better? And you said he plays with your cat? Does that go well? How long did it take them to get acclimated to each other?

The silver fox project is REALLY cool in my opinion. Seeing the process of domestication and HOW IT CHANGES THE PHYSICAL APPEARANCE of the animal is fascinating to me. There was a great article about domestication of wild animals in Nat Geo that talked about this experiment.