Dang Vermin! Stole all the plums! Grrr....

[CalG]

I wish it was that way here. About every 3 years I have to kill a woodchuck. Given the infrequency I've always suspected that somebody drops them off. Then there's the rat which showed up... you don't have just one rat yet once the chickens took care of him I haven't had another problem.

We had a chuck this summer as well. I must have caught sight of it early, because the gardens suffered no damage.

It took just a single shot from the high power .22 airgun to end it's stay. Threw the carcass over the stone wall, fox or coy dogs must have carried it away...
That's only 4 in 30 plus years, but I always wonder how they make it up the hill.

 

[CalG]

Well, It seems that the culprate has revealed it's self.

A good sized black bear just ambled through the back area. Climed a hemlock up about 10 feet when the dogs started barking. Then scrambled down and off , out of sight.

The plums lost were all easily with in maw height!

 

[Paddy]

we planted 3 peach trees 2 ft tall. immediately the deer were eating the branches. Then came the 6ft dia wire round loop fence. Trees out grew loop fence. Installed e-fence around the garden and peach trees and the deer moved out and the raccoons moved in.

I got serious. Installed chicken wire fence 2 ft tall and electric fence wires above starting at 2 inches above. No deer, no raccoons no squirrels. A few bird pecks but most pecks heal.

The chicken wire fence is critical. It is above the weeds/grass. The wire fence forces all critters to climb the grounded fence only to get zapped on the nose.

This year about 1500 peaches from those 3 trees.

side note; we had raccoons climbing our deck posts and getting in the bird seed. I installed wire "halos" at the top of each post

 

[1 Old Man]

we planted 3 peach trees 2 ft tall. immediately the deer were eating the branches. Then came the 6ft dia wire round loop fence. Trees out grew loop fence. Installed e-fence around the garden and peach trees and the deer moved out and the raccoons moved in.

I got serious. Installed chicken wire fence 2 ft tall and electric fence wires above starting at 2 inches above. No deer, no raccoons no squirrels. A few bird pecks but most pecks heal.

The chicken wire fence is critical. It is above the weeds/grass. The wire fence forces all critters to climb the grounded fence only to get zapped on the nose.

This year about 1500 peaches from those 3 trees.

side note; we had raccoons climbing our deck posts and getting in the bird seed. I installed wire "halos" at the top of each post

Possible to post a pic of your set up? Thanks.

 

[Paddy]

1 old man,

Here is a photo of my setup. The chicken wire is hard to see because I started with 2 x 4 inch welded wire 16 inches tall. But look at the post and you can see the chicken wire.

Note the red fiberglass bar in the center of the photo. That is my home made wire spacers. It keeps the wires very close the the grounded fence and then tight together as they go up.

I added a strip of gravel around the fence to slow the weeds. I sprayed the weeds yesterday, second and last time for the year.

The garden is maybe 40 x 70 ft, mostly peach and cherry trees (tart pie types : ) )

just inside the fence is a row of tomatoes/cukes/rhubarb. No till, a 3 ft wide mulch heap I can mow on either side.

Trenched in a pc of 3/4 pex water line, only 6 inches deep for summer water line on timer.

The electric fence runs 365 days a year, at night only. during fruiting season 24/day.

I'm so confident it works, we feed the deer just 75 ft away to veggi scraps. During peach harvest, we were dumping buckets of peachy bits.

no critters in the fence in 3 years. before I was trapping and shooting raccoons and squirrels constantly. stopped feeding the birds because the squirrels. now we are back to feeding the birds, and a bunch of dam squirrels.

 

[Jstpssng]

1 old man,

Here is a photo of my setup. The chicken wire is hard to see because I started with 2 x 4 inch welded wire 16 inches tall. But look at the post and you can see the chicken wire.

Note the red fiberglass bar in the center of the photo. That is my home made wire spacers. It keeps the wires very close the the grounded fence and then tight together as they go up.

I added a strip of gravel around the fence to slow the weeds. I sprayed the weeds yesterday, second and last time for the year.

The garden is maybe 40 x 70 ft, mostly peach and cherry trees (tart pie types : ) )

just inside the fence is a row of tomatoes/cukes/rhubarb. No till, a 3 ft wide mulch heap I can mow on either side.

Trenched in a pc of 3/4 pex water line, only 6 inches deep for summer water line on timer.

The electric fence runs 365 days a year, at night only. during fruiting season 24/day.

I'm so confident it works, we feed the deer just 75 ft away to veggi scraps. During peach harvest, we were dumping buckets of peachy bits.

no critters in the fence in 3 years. before I was trapping and shooting raccoons and squirrels constantly. stopped feeding the birds because the squirrels. now we are back to feeding the birds, and a bunch of dam squirrels.



View attachment 927919

That's interesting. I want to do something similar except use 4'tall, 2x4" fencing with 3 strands of wire on top. The deer are raising the devil with my new fruit trees.
Except my peach trees; one strand of parachute cord at 12 feet seems to be keeping them away.

 

[Molalla1]

I have about 20+ apple, peach and pear trees. 3 years ago I got about 28 6 gallon buckets of apples and they had just started producing a year or so before that. A year after that there were thousands of fruits started and the squirrels began their reign of terror. Kill them and more take their place. That year we got maybe 2 1/2 buckets of apples. Quite a drop.

I then bought about 30 Duke-100 traps and that really started weeding them out. This year the crop was down substancially I think because of the dry weather even though there are only a couple squirrels roaming around. It seems to be a constant struggle with squirrels and birds. There are to many houses around that I can't break out the artillery.

Not so here no neighbors close , I have a lot of fruit trees, sitting on my back deck in my favorite chair I can bring dinner home until they figure it out that it is the kill zone (squirrels} . . .

 

[1 Old Man]

Paddy, very nice set up and the garden looks great. (I may steal your idea!) Thanks

 

[CalG]

After yesterday, I'm gonna need a BEAR PROOF set up.
;-)

 

[oosik]

A short story. The local coyotes have a habit of pooping right near my inner gate. Dead, smack in the middle of my gravel driveway.

I guess - they want to be sure I know that they are still around.

For about four years - one pile of coyote poop always had apricot pits in it. The coyote must have really liked apricots. Nearest apricot tree is over five miles away. This neighbor lost a lot of cots to that coyote.