Loaded question. Pun intended!

There are a lot of squirrel threads here, each one more bloodthirsty than the last.

Gotta stay home when they ripen, then pick as soon as possible, before the squirrels get them.

Don't wait until dead ripe. All you need is that the base color of the skin at the stem end is beginning to lose the green color.

Netting may help, too. But make certain no easy "entrances" are available.

Jean,

No offense but if you pick them that early you might as well buy them in the store. The joy of having fruit trees is to get good tree ripened fruit. One could argue it's better to get rock hard fruit opposed to no fruit. Laura you have to kill the squirrels or use one of a number of techniques to keep them out of the tree.

Look for the posts by harvestman talking about squirrel baffles. If you have no trees nearby to jump from you can put a block on the trunk.

Scott

Thank you! It is so frustrating! Next year I will be more vigilant!

I just saw the other posts! I will search for the threads mentioned. Unfortunately, there are other trees near it and a fence. I have two dogs, but they are lazy and would rather spend the day lounging indoors! I may put them to work next year.

Start an intensive and dedicated trap and terminate program - now - and by next year, maybe - just maybe - you'll have impacted the local squirrel population sufficiently to actually get a fruit or two. No guarantees, however.

If trapping you do not need to get a very big head start. squirrels are territorial, so lets say there are 100 in your neighborhood, but only 10 will step foot on your property (for now) So start trapping on the 4th of July, assuming peaches are your only problem. You will clear out the primary group, then others will experiment with entering your yard the rest of the year, so you have to keep a trap going. The trap should be near where they are going, and be visible from the house so you can keep an eye on it. Use black walnuts as bait, not only is it awesome bait, it limits your catch to squirrels. Block off the trap so only one end can be entered, and block off the sides so they can't be messing with it and trip it from outside. Put 6-8 walnuts on the other side of the trip pan. After you get all the easy ones, you can put a free-be walnut just inside the opening to encourage them to go for the rest.

Conventional wisdom is they need to be killed when caught. Squirrels can find their way home from a very long ways away unless you can get them on the other side of a river

squirrels ate 90% of my huge apple crop this year. I tried trapping with spring traps but they know how to trip them then get the bait. I have now caught 5 grays and 2 reds in a have a hart trap. The grays easily trip the lever but the reds don't weigh enough. I had to position the lever just so it would be sensitive enough to trip with less weight. Now the Chipmunks are eating the few apples that are left. Somehow they trip the lever but never get caught. Very frustrating.

If your property is isolated, hang a radio from the tree. Watch at night though, because sound travels.

" Somehow they trip the lever but never get caught. Very frustrating."

Tomahawk makes a trap that has a much better trip mechanism than Havahart. I think Havahart squirrel traps stink. I bought 3 different harvahart squirrel traps (two double door traps and one single door trap) and none of them were very good.

I bought one Tomahawk single door trap (24" long) and it works great. I don't even use the Havahart squirrel traps any more.

May not only be squirrels...you were on vacation right? So if your neighbors are selling peach jam, peach pie or peach cobbler...save the squirrels.

Hi Laura441,
I feel for you.Although all my peach trees are dwarf and semi-dwarf, ( I have about 12 peaches and altogether 25 fruit trees in total) , I use netting and I often double net the trees. No problems with squirrels, birds or even family members! LOL. If you have a standard sized tree, get a tall ladder and have someone help you double-net your tree. I know it can be troublesome trying to make sure you have every opening closed-but if your peaches are as tasty as mine, and if you really want to eat and enjoy your peaches at peak ripeness,(there is no satisfaction to compare with) you will go to all the aggravation it takes to make sure your tree is fully secured... When the peaches are ripe, then just cut in certain sections and harvest your fruit. I guarantee this will work for you!

Laura, I feel your pain. I had about 18 peaches on my tree, which would've been my first harvest. I checked them on Friday and planned on harvesting them on Sunday. Sunday morning I noticed two were missing, and figured it was my neighbors as I didn't see any remnants nearby and had told the neighbors to help themselves, so I ran some errands and planned to pick them when I returned. An hour or so later, every single one was gone. The bastards left two half eaten ones on the ground.

Does anyone know of a poison that works only for squirrels? It would need to be safe for use around outdoor cats because there are a few in the neighborhood... trapping and drowning seems a little too harsh because my neighbors would see and trapping and relocating seems like a major pain. and shooting is not an option because of proximity of neighbors. So, its either netting or poisoning for me.

Poisoning isn't good for the reason you suspect. Not only cats, but dogs, foxes, coyotes and birds could be harmed by the secondary poisoning.

I had the same problem only it wasn't squirrels it was either a raccoon or a oppussum. My problem is I am only there on the weekends. Next year I will have to either set traps out or stay up one weeekend and shoot them. I have several barn cats so I don't have any problems with squirrels. I don't even have squirrels in my pecan trees.

I had the same problem only it wasn't squirrels it was either a raccoon or a oppussum. My problem is I am only there on the weekends. Next year I will have to either set traps out or stay up one weeekend and shoot them. I have several barn cats so I don't have any problems with squirrels. I don't even have squirrels in my pecan trees.

I just saw this amazing contraption on a link posted in another thread...

This will be added to my backyard next year. the neighbors will have no idea what I am up to!

Here is a link that might be useful: Squirrel Trap

Yes, that's the wondrousness of it!

The squirrel trap seems an good idea and easier to set it up. The resident squirrel stole my only nectarine that I have been waiting for it to bear fruit and to taste its flavor for the past three years. The squirrel cleaned up all the fruits on my Reliance; the squirrel reduced tree-full of fruits to 4 on my July Elberta. I have these 4 peaches enclosed in plastic berry containers. So far, it seems effective but don't know how long.

I have found that to a certain extent, certain individual squirrels are responsible for much of the damage. I had one squirrel gnawing on the squash in my garden. That squirrel went away. No more gnawing.

It's best to eliminate problem squirrels before they can pass on their evil ways to their own young.

The squirrel trap link is hilarious!! I like the trap that launches them straight into the air!!

Then for catch duty: "You do have a dog don't you?"

ltilton,

Im in the camp of:

"Kill them all and let God sort them out." ~Arnaud Amalric

By the time you've identified malicious behavior, its either learned by another or your crop has been destroyed or both.

They are a top 100 invasive species in the world. I have no qualms about controlling my local population.

-Eric
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{{gwi:54837}}

I agree with the "it might be something else" advice.

This year I caught 3 raccoons in two days and then one more a day later in my peach orchard. They got 95% of my early/mid season peaches. I'm hoping the later ones will be ok, but my son told me he saw a mother and 5 young walking into the woods the other day!!

The other thing I did last year that seemed to help (but I stupidly didn't get around to doing this year) was to cage individual trees as they ripened. I have a big fence around the orchard for deer, but it obviously doesn't stop the little guys, so I'd take those 4 or 5 foot high rolls of welded wire fence and circle the tree with it. I then drapped bird netting over the top.

I don't know if I just got lucky last year because none of that should stop a determined raccoon, but I harvested close to 100% of the fruit.

I keep my trees pretty short and not too wide so it makes it much easier to circle the trees, but since the ripening was spread out, I never had to do more than 2 trees at once.

Interestingly, the one squirrel I trapped this year was in the apple orchard.

I agree with the statement from Itilton. When I had a peach in my backyard, the squirrels would start hitting my
peaches as soon as they colored well in mid-July.

I baited a hav-ahart just below the tree with a peanut and
eventually would get the squirrel. Even though I am in the city with lots of squirrels, it seemed all the damage was caused by just a few nuisance ones. Once trapped,
I had no more issues the rest of the picking season even
though I left the trap baited just in case.

I don;t mind if they eat a few but to go down a branch and bite on every peach was frustrating!

My best defense was finally my neighbor who taught a
gun control class. Being home all day, he used the sheridan air rifle to really reduce the population. Just a temporary thing as more move into the area later.

I have heard of others leaving their dog chained up by the peach tree at harvest time as the dog would keep them away.

Thankfully my peach trees are now out on my country site and I have had no squirrel issues there (just deer).

Between weather, animals, insects, fungus, bacteria, and even viruses, it sometimes seems like all out war trying to raise fruit. There is an old adage about nature getting a third (or is it two thirds) of your crop, but when there is nothing left, its them or you.

Get Victor rat traps (same company as Hav-a-Hart) but make sure that you place them where neighborhood pets cannot get injured or killed. I twist-tie peanut half-shells to the trigger, fill the shell halves with peanut butter and embed an assortment of raisins, dried cranberries, dates, and peanuts into the peanut butter. I set three of them in my blueberry cages where smaller animals were tunneling in or squeezing through the chicken wire, and killed chipmunks, mice, and moles as fast as I could reset the traps, which was three times a day. I had one go off as I was walking back into the house from resetting them. After three days, the traps remained empty for weeks. Do not buy Tomcat brand traps. They have a different trigger that is so tight, I would often find the peanut shells licked clean, still twist-tied to the trigger, and the trap still set like I had been visited by Speedy Gonzales How useless is that?

Without the fencing to protect pets, I set them on top of trellis posts and cross arms, where cats and dogs cannot reach them. I get an occasional cat bird or cow bird up there, taking a break from stealing me blind of raspberries and blackberries, but mostly chipmunks and squirrels.

If your state and local regulations and neighborhood configuration allow, a Gamo Whisper pellet rifle will take care of squirrels. They come in .177 and .22 caliber and have the muzzle velocity of a .22 rimfire cartridge rifle. The Whisper model has a silencer that takes away a little of the noise, but with the right pellets breaking the sound barrier, (up to 1,200 feet per second) you still get a "crack" as the pellet travels down-range. With the scope that comes with it dialed in (not an easy feat), I can repeatedly hit one of those green metal garden fence posts at fifty yards, making squirrels an easy target if they are standing still. I'm not a hunter or a cruel person by nature, but there is something to be said for the satisfaction of waking up in the morning to find squirrels jumping around your peach trees like they were on a jungle gym, blowing one out of a tree at 50 yards and watching the rest scatter.

A more humane approach is to string up old CDs with fishing line or string so that they spin in the breeze. The flashing movement seems to help a little. I bought "Bird Scare Tape" that was supposed to do the same thing and ironically found that the sparrows had stolen it to build their nests in the eaves of my house.

I'm in the middle of this battle. I'm trying Hot Pepper Wax spray for squirrels, chipmunks and a bird spray for birds. Can Google these.

Also have come to believe if you have one tree that really attracts them and has lots to eat, the other trees can escape. In my case, they go after my Starking Delicious plum but so far are leaving my Beauty and Superior plums alone. So, you may want to plant something to "feed them".