Whats attacking Kids footballs is Garden at night?

mcloughl · 30-09-2008 9:20pm #1

On two occasions over the last 6 months I have woken to see a child's plastic football essentially savaged and burst in the garden. The ball appears to have parallel slashes in it, maybe an inch long.

Also a gardening glove, totally ripped up.

I was thinking fox, but the garden is totally surrounded with wall and fence. Can they climb walls?

Also I did not think a domestic cat would bother with such things.

Any ideas?

boneless · 02-10-2008 6:32pm

badgers? I have heard of them in the Dublin 16 area...

whitser · 03-10-2008 1:55pm

are you sure its an animal? maybe a neighbour who's garden the ball keeps landing in burst it and threw it back over.

whitser · 03-10-2008 1:57pm

that wouldnt explain the glove though. probably a fox so if your surround by wall and fence. they'll find away over or under.

mcloughl · 03-10-2008 3:49pm

no, definitely an animal of some type. Probably a fox, I have seen lots of them in the area. They must be able to climb as its fairly well surrounded

Day Lewin · 19-10-2008 10:28pm

Foxes can and do scale high walls and easily climb fences. I've seen them walk along the top of a wall ten feet high! Also, foxes love to play with toys. If you look around a foxes' earth, you will always find old shoes, tennis-balls, big feathers and so on, which the young foxes in late summer use for chasing and pouncing games. I have observed two foxes tugging at an old football, in play fighting. And they are very common in your area.
Badgers are a somewhat less likely answer, though they can be found in the area but much less common. They do play with toys too but not such confident climbers. Also, there would probably be other badger signs such as grass being dug up for worms.