What do you call young animals in Japanese?

Question

In English we have a lot of very specific words for many animals. Male foxes are known as reynards or tods, female foxes are known as vixens, and baby foxes are known as kits.

It's not an isolated instance either. Bucks, does, and fawns. Bulls, cows or heifers, and calfs.

It's not even isolated by class. Roosters, hens, and chicks.

Does Japanese have this sort of word specificity, is there an affix of some sort, or are you forced to spell it out, so to speak, as when saying "young fox" or "baby fox".

I am specifically looking for what to call a "kit" or baby fox, since the closest translation I can find is キット which is obviously a loan word and doesn't even necessarily mean a fox kit but it would be good to know what to do in the future.

Answer 1

There's the prefix 子{こ}- 'child', sometimes spelled 仔:

猫（ねこ）　　→　　子猫（こねこ）　　'kitten'  
牛（うし）　　→　　子牛（こうし）　　'calf'  
狐（きつね）　→　　子狐（こぎつね）　'kit'  
羊（ひつじ）　→　　子羊（こひつじ）　'lamb'  
豚（ぶた）　　→　　子豚（こぶた）　　'piglet'  
犬（いぬ）　　→　　子犬（こいぬ）　　'pup'  
鹿（しか）　　→　　子鹿（こじか）　　'fawn'  
馬（うま）　　→　　子馬（こうま）　　'foal'

It doesn't work for every word, though. 小鳥{こ・とり} is 'small bird', and for 'chick' you need to use something like ひよこ.

But it does work for your word, 子狐{こ・ぎつね} 'kit'.

Answer 2

You can get a lot of mileage out of prefixing the names of animals with 子【こ】-, which functions as a diminutive. For example, "kitten" is 子猫【こねこ】; "puppy" is 子犬【こいぬ】; "piglet" is 子豚【こぶた】.

This also works for foxes - the best way to say "kit" is 子狐【こぎつね】.