This year the corn looks really healthy and the early ears have been filling out - when something started to get t hem. Today from the porch I saw a squirrel running from the garden into the trees, with an entire ear of corn in its mouth.
This means war!
Varmints!!!
Well, LTilton, here is one person's approach:
http://community.nascar.com/members/tallsbrat/videos/339
(short video.) It may not be practical but it would probably make you feel a whole lot better. ;-)
My own ideas were running along this line:
http://www.havahart.com/store/live-animal-traps/target-animal/squirrel
Much the more practical approach. Good luck with it!
That video looks like animal cruelty to me.
I hear you. I actually love squirrels and used to feed them where I lived previously....... but honestly, I don't think these squirrels in the video were any the worse for wear..... heck, at least no one in the video fed them mothballs, fer cryin out loud, which is what my mom's neighbors used to do. Talk about cruel.
whoa. that would be VARMINTS!!!!!
no hav a hart traps for elephants, I reckon, either.
Trap deployed, no squirrel yet within. I think this may be the same varmint who was tearing up my mulch fabric to make nests.
Could very well be. Hope it is just one varmint and not a horde.
I have found that often it is just one squirrel causing repeated problems, or at least one squirrel and its disciples. This one, I am sure, has designs on more than my corn. The melons and squash will be its next targets.
New varmint damage, a denuded green pepper plant. Dang thing stripped all the leaves off in search of the baby peppers. The leaves were just lying on the ground. He/she left a few on and the plant will survive...
I sprayed some repellent on them and on the cukes. I guess Bessie, the scarecrow was sleeping on the job last night!
I am hoping that identifying the species of the culprit is the first step.
No, first step is to repel, then identify the culprit. Don't want to sacrifice the garden!
But the choice of repulsion weapons depends on accurate identification of the enemy.
Yes, but I don't want to stay up all night to find the varmint. The repellent I am using is dried blood based. It should repel squirrels, chipmunks, ground hogs, deer, and many other rodents and 4 legged varmints. We have no rabbits here as the coyotes wiped them out. If this doesn't work, then I'll try something else.
Which is why I was lucky to spot the enemy in the act.
Yes, you were!
Squirrel avoided peanutbutter-baited trap, got more corn. Squirrel has so far got all the corn, I have had none.
If squirrels are like birds and racoons, they harvest a couple days early and you might get what's left.........if anything.
This one harvested early and then fought its way through my barriers to get the last two ears from that hill, that were actually ripe. It left the remains so I could tell.
Squirrels are stubborn. I had a bird feeder on a pole. A squirrel learned how to shinny up the pole to get to the feeder. I put stuff on the pole to discourage it. Sticky tape. Squirrel liked the traction. Cooking oil. Cooking oil mixed with stinky squirrel repellent. Motor oil.
Nothing deterred it. I'd watch the varmint get a running start, get 1/2 way up, then start to slowly slide down. Eventually, it would wear away whatever I had on the pole and reach the top. How it cleaned its fur, I don't know.
Eventually I got a baffle for the pole that it couldn't get past.
That was a gray squirrel. So is the current enemy. It got another ear last night from a new hill that I had wrapped up in netting.
LTilton, I used to live up near your area and had the same problem with a squirrel. The former owner of our house had been feeding and housing it. It was a spoiled brat! It was destroying practically every plant I put into the ground. Finally, after I caught it trying to destroy one of my very favorite rose bushes I declared war. I tried a lot of things but the liquid cayene peper stuff finally worked. I sprayed the entire bush with the product and went into the house. I had tried other things that did not work and had little hope for this stuff. I was in the kitchen when I heard a ruckus out front. I ran and looked and there was that squirrel doing back flips and jumping up and down and chattering at the top of it's little hairy lungs! I went out on the porch and just started laughing at it. I could swear it turned and shook it's fist at me and then ran away (probably to find some water)! That was the last of the squirrel vs rose plants war in my yard. He did hang around for a while but I kept putting more of that stuff on random rose bushes.
Maybe you could coat some ripening corn ears with this stuff. I don't know what it is called but have seen several recipes for homemade down through the years. I know it is still in the stores.
Good luck in the war, soldier. Please take heart in that I, a simple private, battled and won!
The capsicum stuff would be good to put on corn, as you could apply it to the shucks where it wouldn't [I hope] affect the taste of the corn.
I have just bagged up all my newly-set melons and am planning to spray the stuff on the plastic bags. The stinky-egg stuff doesn't deter them, and you can't put it directly on anything you ever plan to eat!
Just as I suspected, the varmint has started in on the butternut squash. Even though each squash is zipped into a baggie and the baggie sprayed with pepper spray.
Perhaps one of those motion activated sprayers?
It's a thought.
My son insists that squirrels won't climb an uncoated chickenwire fence. I've never fenced my garden because I figured it wouldn't keep out squirrels.
LT
If you need your food in your garden to survive or are practicing for when you will, don't tolerate any animal coming in and eating YOUR food. Shoot em. Poison them if you have to. We put poison inside coffee cans and set out. Gets rid of unwanted visitors. Rodents can multiply at unbelievable rates. Better do something soon or you will be lucky to get anything to eat out of that garden.
We have a raccoon who ate all the apples off one of our trees. He became coyote food. I won't tolerate animals invading my space. I can't afford to. I work hard and spend money to grow food and I won't let anything interfere with my harvest if I can help it.
Good luck.
I welcome the coyotes to the squirrel. They have already reduced the rabbit population.
Shooting, alas, is illegal where I live.
They don't have squirrel or small game hunting season where you live? You must be in the city then I guess. Yes, not good to shoot if there are close by homes/neighbors. Try spraying some Liquid Fence on your plants to deter them. It works for deer and rabbits. Not sure about squirrels. It's natural and made out of rotten eggs and garlic and I forget what else. I have to keep everything sprayed here or the deer would eat all my plants. I grow enough apples to share and then come deer hunting season we eat them!
It is the squirrel season now in Illinois, but yes, I live in too suburban an area that doesn't allow any discharge of firearms.
I'm finding that the pepper spray stuff does seem to work better on them than the rotten egg stuff. Very happy that we don't seem to have deer - too much nearby traffic, I think.
I have squirrels that love cayenne pepper--the more I sprayed, the more they came...Also have a raccoon that is eating all my melons and ate every apple off my trees--starting on tomatoes and corn now--it doesn't like squash--it mistook a round zucchini for a melon and promptly discarded it--I am trying to trap it now--I feel your pain :)
I recommend, if anyone is considering traps, NOT to get one of the new easy-set variety. The mechanism is insufficiently sensitive to be tripped.
Quoting:
We put poison inside coffee cans and set out.
Loon, I am disturbed by your post. The poison you use, does it remain in the dead animal? If so, other animals could eat the dead carcass and then be poisoned themselves.
What kind of animal eats dead rodents? Most I can think of I'd be glad they died as well.