Rat poison works for me

What a BAD BAD BAD thing to do. They can have all the peaches they want. Will someone please give me a reasonable solution to my problem. THANKS TENDER HEART

im confused- if the squirrels can have all the peaches they want, where is your problem

Bill. Seriously. Either lethal traps or poison bait. If you trees are large enough, and the lower boughs high enough a squirrel can't jump up into the tree, and has to climb, you can try wrapping tree wrap around the trunk for about a foot or two. Then, cover the paper trunk wrap with Tangle-Trap by Tanglefoot (you can Google this product, it's sold at orchard supply stores and better garden centers). This MAY deter the squirrels. But, they are wiley creatures, and I've seen them do some pretty remarkable acrobatics to get into a tree (like run across a very skinny telephone wire for about 40 feet from the roof of a house to another house across the street). If your trees are not large enough to cover the trunk with Tangle-Trap, then truly, lethal traps or poison bait stations designed for squirrels is your only alternative. This IS the reasonable solution if you want to have fruit to eat. Otherwise, you can let the squirrels have it, and they can strip a tree pretty quickly if you have a large enough population, or a small tree. Last year, on my little espaliered Anna, I had 35 apples. I didn't get one, single apple. Not one. All lost to ground squirrels and roof rats. Not this year. I have limited land and resources (water is the price of gold here in S. California), so I'm not inclined to share my fruit production with any rodents. Call me hard harded, but I didn't spent my hard-earned money to feed rodents :-)

Patty S.

get chicken wire and build a cage around and over your tree you will get peaches just be sure and bury the chicken wire at least a 6 inches in the ground as squirrels will dig under as they are in the rat family

Our particular squirrel population seem to be ONLY interested in the nut trees. They are living next to the canyon on neighboring property, and seem to know when the nuts are "ready." My macadamia is especially of interest to them. It gives a huge crop each year, but unfortunately, as time goes on, we are getting fewer and fewer.

On the other hand, an almond nearer to their home, has been targeted earlier, but they are very discerning - waiting for the nuts to open, then in one swoop - call out the entire family and strip it.

This year, I tied mylar balloons around my Anna apple - about a week or 2 ago - and the "apples are still intact." Hopefully, when almond ripening time comes, I will be agile enough and mindful enough - to try the same tactic.

One other "helpful" hint - a "dwarf" peach tree escaped last year's plunder - I circled it with a section of concrete reinforcing wire - and it was spared! Will repeat.

The raccoons wait for apricot ripening time - they are very heavy creatures - breaking limbs when they climb the trees. Last year, I gave in - allowing some ripe, fallen fruit to remain on the ground - it was a good year with fruit from two trees, so we "shared." Sigh!

Bejay

Last year I tossed "bad" peaches on the ground and the squirrels ate those and rarely bothered going up the tree. (The tree isn't close to anything a squirrel could jump from so the only way for a squirrel to get a peach is to climb the tree.)

My squirrels would never settle for the bad peaches- only the fattest, sweetest fruit on the tree for them.

I train most of the trees in my nursery with about 4' straight trunk before first scaffold branches to allow me various deterrent solutions.

If you have the time, you can construct a baffle, but as HQ suggests, tangle trap is quickest and often affective solution although I have to admit, rat poison seems like the most practical- I will certainly try it at at least one site this season.

Farmers can't be very sentimental about their vermin. Squirrels are just nervous little rodent competitors to me- I have more sympathy for rats!

Great Lakes IPM is by far the cheapest source of tangletrap I have found. But someone squeamish about killing rodents might get upset when they find a squirrel tail stuck in the tangletrap. It will sometimes kill a bird as well, which does make me a bit sick.

What kind and how do you place the poison for squirrels? I don't have many, but I also don't have lots of English walnuts yet, so we are competing for a scarce commodity. I think raccoons have done more damage to my fruit trees, but bluejays were by far the worst pest last year. I didn't get a single peach off my Red Havens that wasn't bird damaged, and many of the apples were hit, too.

Chuck

I've heard here that One Bite is the ticket- it's what Luva used.

br33 I surround many of my stone fruit with green tule bags tying the drawstring around the limb. The fine mesh keeps the bugs away and i have not yet had a squirrel chew through a bag. I prefer these to footies or cotton bags as they are easier to use/reuse, last years and you can see/smell the fruit and thus know when to pick.

You may also be interested in the scarecrow motion detector sprinkler ( it works ok), hanging cd's from the tree, electric fence, hunting dogs and hungry tom cats may chase away squirrels. I have been trying to attract some red tail hawks which would help as well : ) Also, minimize food sources and shelter sources in your area and the wildlife will live elsewhere.

Thanks every one for the help.I`m to tender hearted to kill them. Posion-sticky etc ugh ugh I`ll try the tule bags (Where do you get them). I heard red pepper spray would help, but no one here seems to have used it. oh well if the squirrels get them there`s always the farmers market. GOOD LUCK EVERYONE Bill

It's not that we haven't used it it's that it's not affective. My squirrels will eat pepper straight when they're hungry. So many useless products- so little time!

Hungry squirrels will also tear through any barrier short of chicken wire strength and I've heard Texas has squirrels that can gnaw through that. People (myself included) often believe something works based on inadequate evidence. A deterrent may only be partially affective or affective only out of coincidence.

Too bad you can't set up some kind of electric fence system. Of course, electric fences sometimes kill squirrels also!

yes- I used one botelast year worked very well, and as a bonus, i got a couple of dead squirrels in my yard which i buried next to my two year old cherry tree which put out a ton of cherries this year.
tried most of the other non lethal methods and they did not work- in fact the squirrels would often gather around in groups and have a jolly good laugh over the latest non-deterent deterent.
havent heard of tule bags but the squirrels loved eating the peaches that were enclosed in footies- it waskinda like a footie peach wrap to them

harvestman, yea, those squirrels must be related to our ground squirrels here in California ;-) And the gophers. They can easily chew through chicken wire if given enough time. That's why I surround my blueberries first with cattle panels (yes, my wonderful, VERY strong husband bent cattle panels into surrounds), and then cover it with hardware cloth, as the rats could squeeze through double cattle panel tubes. Unbelieveable. It is pretty ridiculous what I have to do to grow stuff here. Much more difficult than it was in Indiana. It's poison bait in special rat and ground squirrel stations scattered around my yard. The stations have spikes in them, that allow you to slide the bait over the spike. Very imporant with rats, as they prefer to steal the bait and bury it. This forces the rats to eat the bait IN the station, and then die. Ground squirrel bait is a poisoned grain product. That gets scattered in my bait stations as well. So I have two kinds of bait in each station, since the rats and ground squirrels will visit both stations. So far, crossing fingers, I still have apples on both Annas. Have only lost one unripe apple from probably a ground squirrel so far. I might get apples this year, yea!

Patty S.

Shoot them and compost their bodies. They are pests. There are millions of them. We own some land north of here and I've got a picture from a game camera that has around 20 squirrels in one picture (they were eating corn)...

Squirrels migrate to the food source. The more food the more squirrels. If you live near a woods you may have grey squirrels. Once they get started they bring all their friends. Nothing left for you.

Click on the link below to my Flicker Photo.

Karyl

Here is a link that might be useful: Hungury Squirrels

http://www.yourorganzabag.com/organzabag.htm

i use emerald green 4 by 6 for peaches, 5 by 8 for apples and the bags effective size is less than the dimensions due to draw string placement.

Thanks Garedneck Is 4 by 6 and 5 by 8 ft or in. All I find are inches and I don`t think that will work. I`d like to talk to you about this problem P.M. me and give me your addy and I`ll send you my phone no. Bill

Impressive netting! It looks like PVC pipe was used for the top part, its flexible in long lengths. The only thing I don't like is tree access, the net has to come off to do anything.

Re: the organza bags, I have used them on my grape clusters (bigger sized bags, to keep birds and wasps off the clusters) but have not tried them on peaches since I thought a squirrel would chew through one in a jiffy. I have had good luck with the cloth bags on my peaches but the organza bags would be better if they kept squirrels out since the air circulation and visibility are much better.

Scott

Too bad we couldn't just talk to the squirrels and make some sort of compromise.

I've seen squirrels go right through that kind of netting. I bought a 700X30 foot roll of it. I generally use it to protect cherries from birds- Looks like I won't have to throw any on those trees this year- the rain has already rotted the entire cherry crop!

Apparently the reason why the squirrels were happy with peaches on the ground LAST year was that they didn't know that the tree was full of fruit. THIS year they are snarfing down so many peaches and the peaches aren't even ripe yet.

I tried putting Tanglefoot on the trunk and lower branches, but they are undeterred. Now I have Tanglefoot footprints all over my tree branches.

I'll be attempting to net the whole tree next.

I have seen a couple 200+ acre orchards (peaches and other fruits) which don't do anything to ward off birds/squirrels/etc. as there is not enough food in the country to support a very large animal population and thus what animals are there eat a very small percentage of the crops. Use that technique where you live... no food sources, no nesting sources, no animals!

I have had a few tulle bags pecked through by birds, i think one branch with peach in tulle bag taken from the tree, an animal that put the tulle bag with peach in its mouth sucking/chewing the peach leaving just the pit in the bag, and yes there will probably be a few a squirrels that may chew through, but most of my crop is harvested by me!

Good luck. You want to become a millionaire? I want to help you! Please solve the squirrel issue!!!!

Hello all,

Last year I lost a HUGE percentage of my tomatoes and all of my corn to squirrels (yard rats). I resorted to rat poison. Sorry folks but I was desperate. I have a small container garden and there was NOT enough to live and let live. Problem is this winter hawks and eagles moved into the neighborhood and began eating the squirrels. I could not risk having a bird of prey die from eating a poison squirrel. I did serious indepth research and found a product which works. It is called Plantskydd Animal Repellent. It smells REALLY REALLY REALLY awful but it works. Problem is you have to start putting it around before the squirrels begin destroying your trees, fruit and gardens. It is NOT a bad taste repellant like hot pepper wax. It is blood meal and some other stuff. Do I still have squirrels around?? Yes! They have not taken one - NOT ONE - bite of my garden this year. I started putting Plantskydd Animal Repellent on the ground about 2 weeks before I set my plants in their containers (I have 25 EarthBoxes). I do not need to replace after a rain. Because I am wary I do put more Plantskydd around the garden every 3 weeks. I also have a small bottle of bobcat urine which I put on the wood fence ledge in our yard.

Will it work for you?? I do not know. Hot pepper wax did not work for me. The squirrels just went to each and every tomato and took a bite. The corn never got to make ears because the squirrels ate the plants off at the knees!! I do have some help from the hawks and eagles but they don't eat all the squirrels.

Good luck,
DL

When we first moved here there was not an abundance of squirrels or birds around our house. In went the garden and orchard.

We started feeding the birds with feeders hung on the porch. Delightful to watch the birds eat, but I wondered how serving up food would impact the blueberries, rasps, apples, pears, et al. Soon they found the berries and rang up their big fat cousins, the wild turkeys. Berries one day, gone the next.

The gray tree rats soon found the feeders and I would run them off with an old Daisey BB gun. But when I turn my back...

Both populations exploded and soon there were critters everywhere. I could walk out and watch a half a dozen squirrels in any direction. Goldfinches would cuss us out if the feeders ran out. Fruit started disappearing. I have plum tree that had fruit on it for the first time in twelve years and they got 'em all. I tried to live with it, but soon got out the Havahart traps and set them to work down in the orchard.

This year I have a small crop of all fruit due to lousy weather conditions and don't want to share. I have 35 acres and they can have all they want, just not my garden.

20 quirrels and counting. Add to the mix - Garden-Cart-Full-O-Water-Of-Death, 16 gauge Mossberg shotgun, and one well fed Lab doggie.

Don't even get me started on the other marauders - crows.

We harvested most of the apricots and plums this year. I hung flashing CDs and mylar baloons on the tree limbs, plus allowing some dropped fruit overnight. This satisfied the coons and perhaps squirrels.

The almonds are beginning to open, and I'd better pick before the buggers get wise. Last year, I waited one day to long, after they opened, and the critters cleaned them out.

At least the apricots are in the freezer, and the plums are in the fermenter (wine).

Bejay

I was wondering if anyone had any experience using sprays like Havaheart's organic repellents with nuts. I'm worried that the spray would soak into the hull and either alter the taste or the smell of the nuts. Unfortunately with our situation killing them isn't an option and so I'm stuck with repellents and trapping. I also read somewhere that squirrels can reach branches that are 6-8ft above the ground but it seems like a general consensus here is about 4 feet vertical? My hubby will plow through a pound of walnuts in a day given the opportunity and I'd really like to be able to grow some for him rather than having to buy them all the time. Thanks for any advice!

To have organic / kill free, peaches, you would have to buy them at Kroger's. Live trapping and transporting the only puts the problem in someone else's yard and is rude. This is why, it is against the law in most states.

Putting them where there are not naturally populated, puts them in an area where they will stave or artificially over populate and be destroyed.

The only other option is to fence the yard and buy a pit bull. It would need to be out from dawn till dusk though.

aiaylasdream, repellents have the problem of washing off far more quickly than the label states. They really need to be re-applied after every rain if the pest pressure is high, and that gets old fast. On the positive side the walnut hull is so thick that it would not affect the nut flavor at all. If your walnut has no other trees nearby you could easily keep squirrels off with a trunk barrier.

Scott