Squirrels, are digging in my pots that I have carefully put cuttings in, and other things too...they were into, many of the pots of things I had ready for the RU...what can I do? Anything?
I Have a Problem
when you plant, you can put down a layer of chicken wire over the dirt.
the plants will grow thru the wire, but the squirells wont be able to dig to hide their winter stash anymore :)
when I was planting Iris last week, I kept digging up peanuts that I had been leaving out for the blue jays....guess the squirells were getting them and burying them in my beds lol!
I don't have a serious squirrel problem but i do feed them sunflower seeds in another part of my yard away from plants. They also like cornbread.
Vickie
The cat I used to have, patrolled the yard...he never tried to catch the squirrels but they were not so brazen...now that he is gone, they are way too impudent...
We bought a hav-a-heart safe trap that came with a larger one (possum size). We catch them in the little one first and transfer to the bigger one. So far we have relocated 17 to the park. They were digging into my pots and my flower beds also. This year has really been bad.
1Anjl....Those peanuts may have been put there by the bluejays. Three times I have watched the ones I feed take a nut and go put it in foliage so they could return for antoher one!
lol, nope, not the blue jays....these were actually buried in the dirt and there were 4 or five in each lil hole :) I think its kinda cute, and they arent damaging anything here...so I just let them be.
but if they were digging up my plants...that would be another story! LOL!
Yeah, it is not cute any more to me! I propagate Roses, and clematis and other things, so I have 100 or more pots full of cuttings..and when the squirrels (and the blue jays) disturb the pot....need less to say...it makes me very un-happy.
If you want to try the trap and release Melva....Tractor Supply had the two cage set for about $32.50 if I remember correctly. We bait our with shelled pecans.
I have critter problems here and years ago I took some welded wire fencing and bent a piece over (inverted U-shape) and then fastened small pieces to cover the front and back to form something about 5 feet long to protect some seedlings and cuttings. It helps. The front piece can be easily opened on one side or the whole thing can be removed to take care of things. I live in the country and there are SO many wild animals that come around. My fence can only keep some of them out. Some of these local critters are looking for earthworms to eat.
This message was edited Oct 13, 2008 6:02 PM
Melva, if they are small pots, you could try covering the the surface dirt with aluminum foil. I've never tried that with squirrels, but I've heard it works. I do know that it works to keep out kitties who think they are litter boxes.
We have been catching racoons and relocating them from the old house at the ranch where we feed two feral cats. Last week there was a skunk in one unbaited trap. DH told me that if he moved very slowly the skunk would not get excited and spray and he could open the door and let it out. Thank goodness, his shoes were old and can be discarded, the jeans have finally aired out after being washed twice in animal odor remover and left in the sun for a few days, the watchband is cheap plastic and smells less offensive each day, etc. Now the traps are going to be moved to the enclosed room behind the carport that only the cats and racoons can get into through the rafters.
I will try the foil..I am also trying the chicken wire, but there are so many pots! .So making a barrier with a larger piece of wire folded over, would be a more sensible thing...in the spring I have the same problem with Toads that like to burrow in the soft, moist dirt....
It was a section of 5 foot welded wire fencing bent over the form an inverted U-shaped hut...don't remember how how wide a piece, but I cut more pieces of the fencing to fit the ends, then attached them with all with wires, except one end of the second small piece, which I put something on so that I could open and close that end.
Bwahahaha, Pat! Have you let him come home to sleep yet?
Hehehe!!! That is funny Pat!!
I even let him ride him in the pickup and made him keep his clothes on. The shoes were the worst, and he must have gotten his foot against my purse. It quit smelling after a couple of days. The jeans were washed twice in animal odor remover and then hung out in the sun and wind. They are fine now. He still maintains that the skunk would not have sprayed had he not had to slide a concrete block over to keep the trap door open. Right.
We STILL have racoons. They dismantled the autofeeder we got for the cats again. We were gone for four days, and the two feral cats were there to meet us when we returned and were very eager for their food. So Robert has been adapting a wooden box to hold the autofeeder. It will be secured to the wall and dispense food through a metal pipe out the bottom and leave no way, we hope, for the racoons to raid the cat food supply. Why we adopted feral cats, I am not sure. They came with the property last summer, and we love cats. These two do not love us, but they do depend on us now. We hope Cal Poly, the calico polydactyl, will reward us with a kitten, but I doubt that she will share willingly.
Hi Melva'
I'm now living down near you.... not so far away now.
This is a picture of a steel netting I did for the bunnies & squirrels for 2008, up in NYS.
It went over a 3 foot X 3 foot SFG.
~* Robin
The idea came from this picture & one at the SFG site:
Wow, that is a cool contraption! I might try a smaller version to keep the rabbits out of the hostas.
Hey, Pat, you'll be glad to know that I took your advice and stopped feeding the raccoons. Shortly after that we discovered there were rats in the neighborhood, so it REALLY wasn't a good idea. Unfortunately, also because of both, I had to quit filling my birdfeeders too. :(
Now I have some kind of animal swimming at night in my little pond, and in the very large pot where I grow lotus. Don't know what, but they're displacing about 6 inches of water a day. I need to put a camera out there and see what turns up.
Naturewalker, that looks pretty similar to mine, except that mine is 5 foot long. I've been meaning to make a second one. In winter, if it might freeze too much for what I have inside, I can just throw something over it.
This is a PVC cage made out of nylon netting; but you could use chicken wire instead. You can make it as small or Large as you need to. It usually won't stand up to deer or teenagers knocking it over though!!
~* Robin
I use Squirrel Away in my containers. It is a powder made from very, very hot pepper and usually is sprinkled on bird seed to keep the squirrels from eating it. I sprinkle it on top of the dirt in the containers. It works very well. You can also try cayenne pepper.
It is also, those pesky, blue jays...so the squirrel-away won't work on them..but thaks for the suggestion, I am going to get some.
I also have a big squirrel problem. My most successful technique has been to mulch my pots with lava rock.
Dennis
Well I have re-located my squirrel problem this year. LOL! We bought some traps at Tractor Supply and baited them with shelled pecans. We have taken 21 so far to Botanic Gardens wooded area.
Dennis, lava rocks is a great solution.
melvatoo and 1AnjL blue jays actually "plant" nuts. I was preparing the soil in order to plant some spring plants and a blue jay kept sitting on the fence near me. As soon as I left to take a sip of soda, the blue jay went to where I had turned the soil and "planted" a peanut. It even covered it with some soft mulch. They also "plant" oak acorns. Soft damp soils provide numerous locations and a fast means of covering their cache, so jays put nuts where they are most likely to grow. The blue jays can return to eat the nuts in the winter or some of the nuts will grow and ensure that the birds will have a supply later on.
melvatoo, you might want to place bird netting over the cuttings if feasible. I use the plastic black kind that is hardly noticeable. Of course, this might be a lot of work.
Melvatoo, This is going to sound like a really bizarre story but I had a bad squirrel problem when I first moved into my house up north. The previous owner (a little old lady) had been feeding them and even provided them with nesting boxes set INSIDE the house! There were little flat doors inserted in the panes of several windows. (I wondered what those were for when we first looked at the house). They were very spoiled and very aggressive about getting back into the house once I kicked them out. They were so fat they looked like pregnant dachshunds.They even started to chew at the screen windows and trying to tear the screens away from the windows to chew away at the wooden parts of the windows to get back into the house. They then proceeded to tear up anything I tried to plant. It made me laugh to my friends at work because I likened it to some sort of a Hitchcock movie but it was getting out of hand. I couldn't keep anything in the ground and I tried all sorts of cages and wire mesh type containers. Once those squirrels decide to get at something they just keep on comming. I finally started sprinkling cayenne pepper around all new planting and into the pots. It did work. In fact we mixed cayenne with some veg oil and a little soap and sprayed it around the windows. I found the recipe for the spray on some website (probably MotherEarth News). It was quite some time ago but a good search should bring up the same or similar recipe. You have to re-apply after rain but it doesn't harm birds. Does keep the cats and dogs away but it is only temporary until you've trained the squirrels to stay away. If all else fails try cayenne and good luck. They are cute until they tear up about $200 worth of tuberous begonias. Then its war!
Lol Sheila, so if we go to the Botanic Gardens and everything is squirrel-ravaged, we know who to blame! :-)
Yep! We called animal control to ask if they would pick them up, and they said just release them at a city park. That is the best wooded area I know of. We let most of them go inside the main entrance where they leave the woods natural as nature intended. It has fallen trees etc. Some we did release near the new boardwalk wooded area.
That is all we are going to transport this year. I can handle three or four in my yard on a regular basis, but it was pretty bad when they would stand in front of my cats and bark at them! They would even come on the deck and dig in my pots here! I tried the cyanne in and around the sunflower feeders and they said "nice seasoning!" I found a site that said I should use the habanero (sp) peppers, will next time.
The squirrels have ripped open my nice patio furniture cushions and pulled out the "stuffing" to use in their nests. They chewed a hole through the wall of my house near the highest eave. We patched it with boards; however, they ripped them off. Wire caging material attached with large staples now cover it. This did not defeat them. Now I have a huge hole in the roof overhang and the mama, daddy and babies are very adept at climbing up a trellis and into the attic through it. I am afraid they will eat through the wiring. The little devils have eaten through the rope I have used to hang decorative items in my trees causing them to fall and break. One baby scurried through the backdoor and was in the house for a week or so. We finally chained both dogs outside and left both doors open and it ran outside. I was afraid that a whole herd of them would come in to enjoy the air conditioning. We have trapped a lot of them and released at a lake; however, we still have a problem. My husband is talking about shooting them now. But, I just can't let him do it.
If a person were doing this to you - ripping your place apart and all - would you let them do it? I doubt it. Now is the time,finally to do something about it. You and others might say that they are just wild animals trying to live. That's true - BUT - this can't go on! Time to take action: either shooting (if that's legal) or poison (maybe not enough to kill them but enough to make them go away.) Why should you continue to use your time and skills to haul these animals away when they just come back again. Surely there is a somewhat humane way to rid yourself of them. A vet might be able to help you. Squirrels are varmints and will take over if you don't do something drastic and not feel bad about it. I love animals as much as anyone and more than some just as I love people and flowers, etc. but enough is enough.Some one has to be in charge and right now the squirrels are in charge.......
Ann
Oh no....htop that is terrible. I am glad ours didn't get to that point. I am afraid I would be taking to shooting them too at that point. We can't fire a gun in the city legally, but a pellet gun is ok and would probably do the trick. We had tried running them out of the flower beds with a slingshot but that didn't work; they just kept doing what they were doing as the rocks bounced off.
I had some squirrels in my attic once, and I put moth balls near their nest. They left, and I boarded up the hole.
Dennis
htop's would probably throw them at her from the roof!
You can try sprinkling red pepper on the dirt. It works good for keeping the chickens out I'm not sure about squirrels.
Ann, I may have to take desperate actions. My husband has the pellet gun ready.
Dennis, mothballs in hanging baskets work if one can stand the smell. They evaporate quickly in the summer. We'll put some in the attic.
Sheila, I sure hope the squirrels don't throw them at us from the rooftop! :o)
Re: Sheila, I sure hope the squirrels don't throw them at us from the rooftop! :o)
You might want to wear a helmet, just in case!
Hi, maggiemoo. I hope we can visit again in person sometime.
I think a visit to San Antonio is long overdue! Hope we can work something out in the spring, I really would love to see you again.
((((hugs))))