What do foxes eat in winter?

In winter, insects and fruit disappear, so foxes narrow their diet to hunting rodents and scavenging. Red foxes locate voles and mice moving under snow by sound, then pounce through the crust to catch them. Carrion becomes more important, and foxes also dig up food they cached during autumn — eggs, prey, and scraps buried in scattered shallow holes across their territory as insurance against lean hunting.

Attacks on healthy adult cats are rare. An adult cat is close to a red fox in size and well armed with claws, so foxes almost always avoid confrontation — the two often ignore each other in shared gardens. Kittens and frail cats are more vulnerable, and small outdoor pets like rabbits, guinea pigs, and chickens are genuinely at risk. A fox seen eating a cat is usually scavenging one killed by traffic.

How much do foxes eat per day?

An adult red fox typically needs roughly 0.5 to 1 kilogram (about 1 to 2 pounds) of food per day, depending on its size, the season, and workload. Needs spike in spring, when both parents ferry food to a den of growing cubs. Foxes generally hunt between dusk and dawn, eating many small meals along a regular circuit of their territory and caching any surplus for later.

Do foxes eat fruit and vegetables?

Yes. Foxes are true omnivores, and plant food is a normal part of the diet, not a last resort. Blackberries, apples, cherries, and other soft fruit become major foods in late summer and autumn, helping foxes fatten up before winter. The gray fox of North America — a rare tree-climbing canid — eats even more fruit and plant matter than the red fox, alongside rodents, birds, and insects.

Should you feed foxes in your garden?

It's best avoided. Foxes that associate people with food lose their natural wariness, which often ends badly for the fox through road accidents, neighbor conflict, or dependence on an unreliable source. Hand-feeding is the worst option, as it teaches boldness that gets foxes treated as nuisances. A wildlife-friendly garden with natural cover, invertebrates, and windfall fruit supports foxes on their own terms instead.

Mammals

What Do Foxes Eat? Diet by Season, Habitat, and Species

Q: What do red foxes eat?

Red foxes eat mainly small rodents such as voles and mice, plus rabbits, birds and their eggs, insects, earthworms, fruit, and carrion. Rodents are the backbone of the diet in most rural habitats, while soft fruit like blackberries becomes a real staple in late summer and autumn. Urban red foxes hunt rats, mice, and pigeons but also scavenge heavily from bins, discarded food, and pet bowls.

By The Fauna Archive · Updated 2026-07-19 · 7 min read

What Do Foxes Eat? Diet by Season, Habitat, and Species

The quick versionFoxes are opportunistic omnivores. Their core diet is small mammals — especially voles, mice, and rabbits — supplemented with birds and eggs, insects, earthworms, fruit, and carrion. The menu shifts with the seasons: rodent-heavy in winter, rich in invertebrates and berries in summer and autumn. Diet also varies by species — Arctic foxes rely on lemmings, fennec foxes on insects — and urban red foxes add scavenged human food scraps to the same flexible playbook.

What's inside

What Do Foxes Eat? The Short Answer
What Do Red Foxes Eat?
What Do Foxes Eat in the Wild, Season by Season?
Fox Diet by Species
Do Foxes Eat Cats?
How Much Does a Fox Eat — and How It Hunts for a Family
Should You Feed Foxes?
The Bottom Line

What Do Foxes Eat? The Short Answer

Foxes are opportunistic omnivores. A wild fox's diet is built around small mammals — especially voles, mice, and rabbits — rounded out with birds and their eggs, insects, earthworms, reptiles, amphibians, fruit, and carrion. The mix shifts constantly with what's available: heavy on rodents in winter, rich in insects and berries in late summer, and topped up with scraps and pet food in towns and cities. That flexibility is the single biggest reason foxes thrive on every continent except Antarctica, from Arctic tundra to downtown alleys.

If you remember one thing, make it this: there is no single "fox food." A fox eats whatever its habitat and the season put in front of it, and it is remarkably good at finding out what that is.

What Do Red Foxes Eat?

The red fox (Vulpes vulpes) is the most widespread wild carnivoran on Earth, and its menu reflects that reach. Wherever red foxes live, a few staples show up again and again:

Small rodents — voles and mice are the backbone of the diet in most rural habitats, often making up the largest share of what a red fox eats across the year.
Rabbits and hares — a major food source where they're common, especially for foxes feeding growing cubs in spring.
Birds and eggs — ground-nesting birds are most vulnerable; foxes readily raid nests for eggs and chicks.
Insects and earthworms — beetles, grasshoppers, and especially earthworms on damp nights can be a surprisingly large part of the diet.
Fruit and berries — blackberries, apples, cherries, and other soft fruit become a real staple in late summer and autumn.
Carrion — foxes scavenge readily, from roadkill to the leftovers of larger predators.

A useful way to picture it: a red fox is roughly the size of a small dog but eats more like a raccoon than a wolf. It's a hunter and a forager in the same body.

The famous "mousing pounce"

Red foxes hunt rodents with a signature move: they stand still, ears cocked at rustling under grass or snow, then leap high and dive front-paws-first onto prey they often can't even see. It's precision work, not pursuit — the opposite end of the predator spectrum from a big cat running down prey in the open. (For that end of the spectrum, see how fast a cheetah can run.)

What Do Foxes Eat in the Wild, Season by Season?

A fox's year is a rotating menu. Here's how the diet typically shifts across the seasons in temperate habitats:

Season	Main foods	Why
Spring	Rodents, rabbits, eggs, nestlings	Breeding season for prey species means abundant young animals; fox parents are also feeding cubs
Summer	Insects, earthworms, small mammals, early fruit	Invertebrates peak in warm months and are easy calories for cubs learning to forage
Autumn	Fruit, berries, nuts, rodents	Foxes fatten up on ripe fruit and cache surplus food for leaner months
Winter	Voles and mice under snow, carrion, cached food	Invertebrates and fruit disappear, so hunting rodents and scavenging carry the load

Fox diet in winter

Winter is the season that tests a fox. Insects are gone, fruit is finished, and prey is hidden — so the diet narrows to what a fox does best: hunting rodents by sound. A red fox can detect a vole moving beneath the snow and pounce through the crust to reach it. Carrion matters more in winter too; a deer carcass can feed a fox for days.

Foxes also plan ahead. Throughout autumn they cache surplus food — burying eggs, prey, and scraps in scattered, shallow holes — and return to these larders when hunting is poor. Scatter-caching in many small spots, rather than one big store, means a raided cache costs the fox only one meal, not its whole reserve.

Fox Diet by Species

"Fox" covers a couple dozen species across several genera, and habitat shapes each menu.

Arctic fox

The Arctic fox (Vulpes lagopus) leans heavily on lemmings and other small rodents in summer — so heavily that Arctic fox numbers in many regions rise and fall with lemming population cycles. It also takes seabirds, eggs, and fish. In the brutal polar winter, Arctic foxes turn scavenger, sometimes trailing polar bears across sea ice to pick at the remains of seal kills, and drawing on eggs and prey cached during the summer glut.

Fennec fox

The fennec (Vulpes zerda), the tiny big-eared fox of the Sahara, eats mostly insects, small rodents, lizards, birds, eggs, and desert plants. Those oversized ears help it locate prey moving under the sand. Desert living has one more trick: fennecs get most of the moisture they need from their food and can go long stretches without drinking free-standing water.

Gray fox

North America's gray fox (Urocyon cinereoargenteus) is the outlier that climbs trees — one of the few canids in the world that does. Its strong, hooked claws let it forage where red foxes can't, and its diet tilts more toward fruit and other plant matter than the red fox's, alongside the usual rodents, rabbits, birds, and insects.

Urban red foxes

City foxes are still hunters — urban rats, mice, and pigeons are all on the menu — but scavenging does much of the work. Discarded takeaways, unsecured bins, food deliberately left out by residents, fallen fruit, and pet food on patios can supply a large share of an urban fox's calories. It's the same opportunist playbook, run on a human landscape.

Do Foxes Eat Cats?

This is the question behind many late-night searches, so here's the honest answer: attacks on healthy adult cats are rare. An adult cat and a red fox are close in size, and a cat's claws make it a genuinely risky opponent. Faced with a cat, a fox almost always chooses avoidance — the two frequently ignore each other in gardens they share, and when confrontations happen, it's often the cat that stands its ground.

The realistic caveats:

Kittens and very small, elderly, or unwell cats are more vulnerable, as they are to many predators.
Small pets kept outdoors — rabbits, guinea pigs, chickens, ducks — are genuinely at risk. To a fox they are simply prey, and a determined fox can breach flimsy hutches. Secure housing with buried or skirted wire is the fix.
A fox seen eating a cat is usually scavenging one that died of other causes, most often traffic.

So: protect the hutch and the henhouse, supervise kittens, and don't lose sleep over the neighborhood tabby.

How Much Does a Fox Eat — and How It Hunts for a Family

An adult red fox needs roughly 0.5 to 1 kilogram (about 1 to 2 pounds) of food per day, depending on its size, the season, and how hard it's working. That workload spikes in spring: red foxes form pairs for the breeding season — and often keep the same mate year after year, which earns them a mention among animals that mate for life — and both parents, sometimes helped by non-breeding female relatives from earlier litters, ferry food to a den of hungry cubs. A litter of four or five growing cubs turns two efficient hunters into a full-time supply chain.

Foxes hunt mostly between dusk and dawn, travelling a regular circuit of their territory and eating small meals as they go rather than gorging on rare big kills. Anything surplus gets cached.

Should You Feed Foxes?

Feeding wild foxes is best avoided. Foxes that associate people with food lose their natural wariness, which tends to end badly for the fox — through road accidents, conflict with neighbors who don't share the enthusiasm, or dependence on an unreliable food source. Deliberate hand-feeding is the worst version; it teaches boldness that gets foxes labeled as nuisances or threats.

If you enjoy having a fox visit your garden, the wildlife-friendly move is indirect: a healthy garden with natural cover, invertebrates, and windfall fruit supports foxes on their own terms. Keep bins secured, feed pets indoors, and let the fox stay a wild neighbor. For more guides like this one, browse our mammals collection.

The Bottom Line

Foxes eat almost everything, by design. Small rodents anchor the diet nearly everywhere; rabbits, birds, eggs, insects, earthworms, fruit, and carrion fill in around them; and the balance swings with season, habitat, and species — lemmings for the Arctic fox, insects for the fennec, fruit for the tree-climbing gray fox, and a certain amount of takeaway for the urban red. That dietary flexibility, paired with sharp senses and the patience to cache for lean times, is why the fox remains one of the most successful wild mammals on the planet.