Keeping squirrels away from the harvest

[Chuck52]

Bon-bons work. I've described this in other threads. Mix peanut butter and plaster of Paris 1:1. You may have to add a little vegetable oil to get the right consistence to make ping pong sized balls of the stuff. Put them on fence posts and in trees. You will definitely thin the herd. My place is somewhat isolated from continuous woods, so I am able to keep the rats under control fairly easily this way. It takes a while for more to migrate across the open fields to the trees on my property. The bon-bons get pecked on by birds, but I think the birds don't eat enough to do the trick. This has been recommended on the GardenWeb site for some time, and is mostly praised for working well, though if you have lots of squirrels it may only thin them out. A friend lives in town and is surrounded by wooded properties. He said he got rid of the older and bigger squirrels right away and now only sees runts.

I also keep my pellet gun handy, but I haven't seen a squirrel since I last put out the bon-bons about a month ago.

Chuck

 

[scgargoyle]

We have lots of squirrels around here- the whole neighborhood is a canopy of massive oaks. I'd be more than happy to shoot them, but no one is home during the day, so the bananas are unprotected. I'm sure that even with a pellet gun, the cops would be here in minutes- we've got a lot of busy-bodies around here with nothing else to do all day but report things they don't like. To make things worse, someone around here FEEDS them, since my boat is always full of peanut shells. The squirrels can get to the bananas several different ways- from an oak tree, from our roof, and from the ground. That's why I'm thinking a cage might be best- to physically keep them away from the fruit.

 

[jinman]

You can build a cage around the trees covered with chicken wire, but it sure makes for expensive bananas. I'll keep buying mine at Sam's.

 

[scgargoyle]

I was more thinking a small cage that fit around the stalk- just to cage the bananas, not the whole tree. I've got chicken wire laying around anyhow. Maybe it would be more effective with 120 volts running through it.....

 

[Redbug]

Chuck...I have never heard of using a mix of peanut butter and plaster of paris. How does it work to kill them, (hardens in their gut)? How much do they have to eat? Sounds interesting...

 

[Chuck52]

Dave,

On the GardenWeb site we've been around and around about how the bon-bons might work. We had one long discussion where some lady thought it was a particularly cruel way to kill the rats, since she assumed they got terminal constipation. I piped in with the possibility that the plaster, which is calcium sulfate, might cause fairly quick death by screwing up the squirrel's electrolyte balance somehow. I don't really know, and I doubt anyone can be sure without trapping a squirrel and feeding it a bon-bon, and then doing the dissection, and no one volunteered. Some folks say they haven't helped with the squirrels, but that may be due to the population pressure. On my isolated patch, I seem to have eliminated the squirrels with two rounds of bon-bons. I'm trying to protect about a dozen nuts on three English walnuts trees so I can see if I planted something worthwhile. I never saw more than a couple of squirrels, and those were one at a time, but I haven't seen any for over a month now.

As to how much is needed....I don't know. I put out about 20 ping-pong sized balls twice. Most of them disappeared in a few days. No dead anything on the ground. If the birds got any it didn't seem to make any difference to the bird population, but the squirrels are gone. A buddy in town says he seems to have eliminated all the bigger squirrels as he now only sees runts....why, I don't know.

Chuck

 

[Redbug]

That's very interesting Chuck. Here's a thread I submitted a while back that shows a couple methods I had been using...I don't think the Gardenweb people would approve of mine either...

http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/related-topics/90466-do-not-read-if-you.html

 

[Chuck52]

Actually, most of the GardenWeb folks who have orchards would probably do just about anything needed to get rid of the squirrels, coons, possums, etc that get their fruit and nuts. Mostly very practical people there. Of course you also get the occasional nut who thinks flatworms have the same rights as humans.

One of the guys swears by Kania traps, which basically crush the head of whatever animal goes for the bait. I bet your convoluted poison sets would appeal to several of the guys. If I can figure out how to put in the link I'll send them to that thread for instructions.

Chuck

 

[schmism]

Keeping squirrels away from the harvest......

2 12 year old boys and a pellet gun!

 

[scgargoyle]

Then I'd have to dig all of the pellets out of the bananas.....