But its food supply vanishes when the land is converted to intensive agriculture. He says that farming destroys their burrows and eliminates their food supply. This is causing the kit foxes to move into more urban areas and their numbers to dwindle. They have a gestation period of about fifty days. A female kit fox may give birth to four or five young in a litter each weighing around 1.4 ounces, but no more than five percent live long enough to reach sexual maturity at 22 months.
Kit foxes use their underground dens throughout the year, perhaps partly to avoid coyotes.
Though it is often said to be monogamous and to mate for life, biologists have noted some incidents of polygamy. Kit fox pups first venture outside the den when they are about one month old. Like other species of fox, the young foxes leave to seek out new territories when autumn comes. Kit fox Figure 3. Photo of the San Joaquin kit fox.