If you use some standard fence to protect your garden or whatever, as I do, you can easily add one or more electric wires to the top, as described by Chris_in_GA above. You can then simply ground the standard fence directly to the charger ground and anything reaching the hot wire will of necessity be touching a good ground. Probably cheaper than the special wire with hot and ground in each strand. I have done that when I grow corn in my garden because the coons tend to leave everything else in the garden alone, but if there is corn they will come. One hot wire on top of a grounded fence kept them out completely. To keep deer out, unless they are starving you can just add extensions of pvc pipe or whatever you have handy to the t-posts and run a string at about 6 feet or so, with marking tape flags to make it visible. I have pretty heavy deer pressure and that has kept them out of my garden for several years now.
Squirrels in the pecan trees are my problem, too. I need to trim off some lower limbs so I can put something they can’t climb around the trunks, but the trees are young and I have let at least one of them become a bit bottom heavy. Would be major surgery to get those limbs cut back to where they would be out of squirrel reach. The others I can probably fix if I just steel myself to sacrificing those lower limbs. Got four like that with trunks still small enough I can encase them with metal duct for the season. Surely four feet of pipe is enough for all but the Jackie Chans of the squirrel world?
Bluebirds and electric fences. If I run a hot wire to stop squirrels on top of my six foot regular fence would it kill birds that land on it? I’d have to ground the hot wire for it to stop squirrels, right? Or do I just ground my regular fence somehow? I don’t want to kill birds.
Since you are anticipating that the critter visits will continue, to have and use a 1’ X 1’ X 3’ trap near the apple cafeteria could rapidly thin out the herd of night raiders. With lots of recent critter visits here, I put a trap to use using bait consisting of half a cup of dry dog food that was GREATLY enhanced with a few squirts of a retail product sold at Asian stores : fish sauce. It smells like rotten/fermented fish and can ring the supper bell very loudly for big rodents using their hyper sensitive nose to find supper in the darkness of night. In the last 2 weeks 3 possums and one BIG coon thought that it was better than eating fruit. Ooops, one of those actually entered the trap because I tossed in a smoked turkey leg after pulling off most of the meat earlier that day. If you did get a bottle of the fish sauce, you might want to avoid opening it indoors, and DO NOT take a big sniff to see what it smells like. Unless you have a bad head cold. Maybe.
That fish sauce, nouc mam, is an acquired taste. In Vietnam I learned to get beyond the smell and dunk spring rolls, cha gio, in it. Heaven! Pardon spelling errors, it’s been 40 some years. One of the great food pairings on the planet.
The electricution comes from one paw/claw on a grounded wire/fence and the other on a hot wire wherein they complete the circuit and get shocked. Birds can land on high tension wires unharmed for this reason. If your fence is grounded, arrange your hot wire such that the undesired animal has to be paws on the grounded part when he encounters the hot wire. So don’t ground the hot wire. Let the squirrel do it.
Another possum in the Havahart trap last night. This time the trap menu featured a big section of skin from a smoky BBQ chicken, and the Texas possum showed that it was bored with chomping on fruit and ready for a “real meal”.
Another BIG coon ended up in the trap last night after following the trail of fish sauce-enhanced dry dog food leading to the back of the trap. Like the Hansel/Gretel trail of bread crumbs, except the fishy dog food trail stretched about 60 feet to make a wider “net”. I have read that using marshmellows to trap coons has worked, but the subtle m/m smell is surely a lot less of a welcome mat than the fish sauce when it comes to fish-eating rodents out sniffing for supper.
True but your fishy smells bring in every cat in the area. Whereas I’ve never caught anything but a coon using marshmellows. And I’ve caught every coon that was coming by. I small trail of mini marshmellows leading into the trap is all I’ve needed.
Thanks for contributing. The word “every” is pretty strong, and I take it that you may be prone to using it for emphasis and not for accuracy. The neighbor across the street has a cat that wanders about. So far, it has not ended up in the trap. Maybe the dog odor in the yard keeps it away? ? ? Maybe it is already getting plenty fishy food at home? ? ? The dog odor does not keep away the big, hungry rodents. How would you know that every coon that was coming by ended up in your trap? Game camera? I am not trying to be offensive, so please don’t take it that way.
I don’t need a game camera. Coons leave distinctive tracks on my black weed barrier even when there is just dew. Plus they raid the fruit. Pretty easy to tell when that’s going on. I’ve trapped them out yr after yr. That’s usually 3-6 coons per yr. Then it takes several months for others to move in. If I miss getting even one the fruit raids and tracking continues.
Using salmon or chicken left overs usually traps a cat, sometimes a shunk. The neighbors don’t approve even when I let them go and I’ve only sent one that I didn’t recognize to the pound.
Hey if your formula works for you fine. Mine works great here.
I use just plain dog food to catch coons/opossums. Even with tons of peaches on the ground and trees full of peaches, I still don’t seem to have any trouble catching them. I’ve probably caught a dozen coons or more this season, and about that many opossums. Here at the house I have occasionally caught a cat, and several years ago caught a couple skunks, so the marshmallows are probably a better bait.
The reason I don’t use marshmallows is that I carry the bait in a box in my truck. In the summer time the marshmallows get so hot they melt together in a sticky mess.
I agree w/ Fruitnut. If you have even one coon visiting your orchard, you will know it. Half eaten fruit on the ground, along with lots of drops they knock off.
I’ve been pretty successful in the past, covering apple cores with peanut butter (big, inexpensive jar which is >2/3 full after more than a year). Recently, it stopped working, as the traps were being emptied without any catches. I switched it up to peanut butter on stale bread and got a mommy opossum (a 3 for 1 deal) and 3 raccoons in 3 days. Now, for the last two days, they’ve adjusted again and are stealing the bait. The 2nd day, I put a stick through the bread to hold it in place and they still got it. Looks like I need to stop by the store for some marshmallows on the way home tonight.
How are they stealing the bait? I’m not sure what size trap you are using, but with my trap they pretty much have to step on the trip plate to eat the dog food. I’ve not had any coons/opossums steal bait, but occasionally trip the trap by trying to get the bait from the outside.
I did have a bunch of dog food stolen out of the trap last year. At first I thought maybe it was a coon, but then realized it was voles. They store up a lot of food this time of year and can squeeze through the openings.
I’m not sure and would really like to know. I ordered a game camera about an hour ago, so maybe I’ll find out sometime next week.
I have two cages, one very large (won’t quite fit a deer ) and another med-large (still big enough for a good sized coon). One of the times they stole it, I found the smaller cage flipped over and about 5 feet from where it started, even though it was wedged in between some logs and a rock. The other 3 times, the bait was just gone, including the time I held it in with a stick (which was still in place).
I’ve tried to set it at the most sensitive, but it seems sometimes they are careful enough. Maybe they are doing it mission impossible style, climbing along the wall…I know there is at least one groundhog out there too (saw him through the window this morning), so maybe he is the crafty one.
Let us know what they are doing. You know if you catch them, their leader will disavow any knowledge of them, or their mission…and your camera may self-destruct in 10 seconds.
Last night another possum ate the fish sauce-enhanced chunks of dry dog food leading about 50 ft to the trap where most of the food was sitting. The trap did it’s job again.
When I catch one of my cats in my live trap I roll the trap around a few times which freaks the cat out a bit then release it. I have not had any repeat offenders
) and another med-large (still big enough for a good sized coon). One of the times they stole it, I found the smaller cage flipped over and about 5 feet from where it started, even though it was wedged in between some logs and a rock. The other 3 times, the bait was just gone, including the time I held it in with a stick (which was still in place).