A story ..... some years ago, we had a rabid fox problem in the county (& some surrounding counties) that was very bad. There were quite a few incidences of rabid foxes coming into yards and attacking pets, going after people, etc. We had a mama fox on the farm at the time who had a litter of kits in an old groundhog hole under the barn. My dad wanted to do away with all of them (worried about the rabies), but we talked him into letting them be .... she seemed fine, was not exhibiting any weird behavior & we made sure the dogs were all up on their rabies shots. Poor thing was so skinny from nursing the kits ... she decimated my SIL's flock of chickens (from 20 to 3) before we all figured out exactly what was going on. Anyway, my SIL took pity & put out some dog food for her every day to help her with the kits. We would sneak around the barn & watch them play with old dried out horse poop balls - too funny. They carried the balls around and would pounce on them like mice when they dropped them. Dad went in the barn one day & looked in a horse stall - all the kits were lined up against the back wall, snoozing away. As far as I know, she raised the kits (maybe one didn't make it - we thought she had 5, but only saw 4 as they got bigger). My brother said that once fall came & the kits were adults, they were fair game although we never killed any. That was years ago, but we are now catching a large fox coming through the yard about once a week on the game camera (at least it's not coyotes). The skunk population isn't what it used to be around here - we used to see them all the time & they were digging up the yard looking for grubs. The last skunk I spotted in the yard was September a year ago.
We took a bunch of pics of the kits ... can't find but one (& yes, that's a horse poop ball it's carrying):
