When my kids were growing up, I always told them we were the tyrannosaurus rex of the animal kingdom.
Imagine how imposing and fearful we must seem to all but the biggest animals. And we are so much more a dread predator than even they realize, with an intellect far beyond their own, and much more menacing than our size.
BambooMan - Just FYI, those all appear to be pictures of field rats, not voles. Voles are smaller with short, furry tails - while rats are larger with long, hairless ones…
Interesting, thanks for the heads up. I looked through all the species of rodents in Georgia. The only one that matches my pictures is the Hispid Cotton Rat http://icwdm.org/handbook/rodents/CottonRat.asp.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a vole on my farm. Either way, these guys are very prolific and damaging according to the link.
Maybe the title of this thread should be “The Hispid Cotton Rats are Out.”
Wow, I should have caught that. The grizzly pictures turned away my stare. I actually thought we were talking about moles. Now I’m wondering why someone would use a trap like that rather than this, which works for rats and chipmunks for me every time.
they’re all evil lil’ plant chewing machines!
Durability and longevity are the main reasons I use these traps. I’ve seen some fairly small mouse sized rodents caught in the #1 coil springs. I have set quite a few smaller victor snap traps and they just don’t seem to last in comparison. I do keep my traps out nearly all year. These coil springs will probably last longer than me. At $5 a piece that’s a great deal IMO.
I love how multi-functional these #1 coil springs are. They work on rats, rabbits, small mouse sized rodents, squirrels and larger pests like possums that get past my high tensile electric fence into the orchard. By the way, a possum can do a surprising amount of damage to an Asian persimmon tree. It did take me a few tries to learn how to make these traps extremely sensitive, but now I love them.
For you it is a good choice, I’m sure. I use those traps for woodchucks sometimes and find them more time consuming to set. I’m an hour from NYC so time and money are a different equation here than most places. I also only use traps in spring and fall.
Yea, in the name of accuracy, you should update the title, lol!
And also, just keep in mind that opossums are not merely “roadkill” or “pests,” as commonly categorized. They are actually one of the planet’s most extraordinary creatures! For instance, they walked the Earth with the DINOSAURS 70 million years ago and are the only marsupials in North America. And for your purposes, although they do eat fruit…they also eat snails, slugs, MICE, RATS, and an estimated 5000 TICKS per season!
Yet…what’s particularly troubling now is that humans have already killed off about 50% of wildlife globally in just the past 40 YEARS! So, animals that survived the mass extinction of the dinosaurs, Ice Ages, floods, etc. etc. - may now finally go extinct due to…US! I don’t know about you, but to me the thought of a future, sterile world without natural wildlife is horrifying and shameful!
We’ve already taken all their land, and don’t want them touching any of our food. So, what’s left for all the wildlife out there?
Anyhow, just a wider perspective and something to think about…
BTW, there’s also a number of beautiful plants that help to repel all manner of rodents. Haven’t tried these myself yet, but even in the worst case…you would simply have prettier flowerbeds!
When I read that I was surprised that opossums ate ticks. Being a skeptic, I did some research on that and now I’m a believer. Also eating slugs, mice and rats is useful. They did eat most of my gooseberries last year but a mechanical barrier should solve that problem.
I am definitely a proponent of wildlife management, but I’m also a realist. Possums are classified as being of least concern when it comes to their protection status. In fact, their range is expanding further north due to warmer temperatures. My pastures/orchards are fenced to exclude wildlife, but sometimes they squeeze through. Animals are clever enough to find their way back to a huge source of food. I am not open to consuming fruit from a tree that may contain possum waste, which may host a wide array of pathogens. Opossums carry diseases such as leptospirosis, tuberculosis, relapsing fever, tularemia, spotted fever, toxoplasmosis, coccidiosis, trichomoniasis, and Chagas disease. They may also be infested with fleas, ticks, mites, and lice. Opossums are hosts for cat and dog fleas, especially in urban environments.
http://ipm.ucanr.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn74123.html
Believe me, I do not go out of my way to run these guys down or hunt them. I have a close friend whose horse contracted Equinbe Protozoal Myeloencephalitis from possum waste. In a perfect world, I would have live traps and try relocation. I guess for me it boils down to time, money, risk and effectiveness. I have high tensile and woven wire fence around 12 or so acres. I purchased a 32 joule (very pricey) fence charger to both contain my animals and exclude wildlife. Individually protecting every plant is impossible from a financial perspective. I like the idea of planting things to repel pests, but on a broad scale that would take a very long time.
I do love the fact that possums eat rodents and ticks, but there is definitely no shortage of possums around here.
Opossums carry diseases such as leptospirosis, tuberculosis, relapsing fever, tularemia, spotted fever, toxoplasmosis, coccidiosis, trichomoniasis, and Chagas disease. They may also be infested with fleas, ticks, mites, and lice. Opossums are hosts for cat and dog fleas, especially in urban environments.
Well, that may be somewhat true, but only part of the truth… As you do have to consider the source here (Integrated “Pest” Management)… Yet again, for example, opossums actually serve to KILL an enormous amount of ticks (and thus fight debilitating LYME disease)!
Yes, they will carry many hungry ticks like any furry creature like a sponge…but then they’ll eat 96.5% of those same ticks before they can detach on their own. So they’re not tick vectors…they’re actually tick traps! A KEY distinction that that “pest” site completely ignores! As if ticks aren’t MASSIVE “pests” and Lyme disease isn’t far more epidemic amongst humans than all those other rare diseases they listed (minus trichomoniasis) COMBINED???
only 3.5 percent of ticks on opossums survived to drop off. Why? It turns out that the fastidious opossums were killing their ticks in the process of grooming—scratching, licking and chewing away at ticks in their fur. Examination of opossum feces confirmed that some of the ticks had been eaten.
This is significant because during late summer, when ticks are most abundant, the average opossum may be walking around with roughly 200 ticks on its body, according to the researchers. Based on their study results, they calculate that a single opossum might kill an astonishing 4,000 ticks in a week, a number that “really got our attention,” says Ostfeld. By “hoovering up and killing” so many ticks, he says, opossums are “not only protecting themselves, they’re protecting us because we know that human risk is a function of the abundance of infected ticks out in the environment.”
That said yes, of course, if they can carry fleas, they can carry disease…
But that also goes for all of peoples’ domestic pets too, so it’s not fair to only scapegoat wildlife.
And what are the actual frequency of transmission rates for such diseases??? Every animal (including humans) can carry diseases, too - but you have to factor in transmission rates and actual risk to gain a more useful perspective.
Anyhow, guess you have to weigh the pros and cons in your situation, and glad you at least put some thought into it! 
PS - A few more fun facts about opossums is that they have the most teeth (50) of any North American mammal, immunity to many toxins and venoms, opposable “thumbs,” prehensile tails, and forked penises!
I have yet to meet an aggressive rattlesnake, and I am fine with that. I used to see them often when we lived along the Hassayampa river out west of Phoenix. I had some horses that would shy away from them, and then I rode a horse for a neighbor once that didn’t even bat an eye, he just ran right over the top of a buzzing rattler!
We were in the habit of killing any rattlesnake that showed up on our place, because if you are in ‘their’ territory, they will be a regular visitor, and we had many high quality goats, as well as horses and mini horses…and of course we never relished the idea of meeting one while out doing chores…though you always know it is a possibility.
My mom has met more then a few though, that would come after you. They called them coontail rattlesnakes, and said they had black and light bands by their tails.
Again, I have never met one that came after me, or approached me in any way, and I have almost stepped on them, and seen many on foot and on horseback.
Shrugs. After reading about the rattlesnake roundups in Texas we have no fear of exterminating a species…and at the same time no real hope of impacting the population either. If you can harvest hundreds a year, year after year after year after year… you get the idea.
Now voles are another subject. None of them here to bother our trees or garden, but we brought one home that we found out in a field about a mile from home (we didn’t know what it was) and it turned out to be the funnest little rodent. It was super friendly, never bit after the first time it was caught in the field, and would run into hands to be held. Some of the kids actually cried when he died. LOL
I didn’t realize that I had a growing mouse problem in the back yard until a couple of weeks ago. The dogs are always hunting lizards in the back yard and they usually catch a couple every weekend during the summer months. The smaller dog, Iris, has the unfortunate habit of bringing the ‘catch’ inside. I’ve had to pick up the occasional dead lizard over the years. However, over the last couple of weeks the dogs have caught 6+ field mice and one very large rat. Happy that the dogs are catching them, not so happy that these vermin have moved into the yard in such large numbers. And Iris continues to bring the occasional prize inside. Traumatizes my wife every time she sees one. At least she left the rat outside although it startled the crap out of me when I stumbled on it in the grass.
I figure that the root cause of the infestation is my vegetable garden. I have a couple of very prolific cherry tomato plants and I haven’t always been very good about picking up the tomatoes that fall to the ground - it can be hard to reach some of them. Lately it’s been worse as I badly sprained an ankle which has significantly limited my mobility.
Hopefully the dogs will keep the vermin in check until I can clean up the veggie beds.
Possums can be very bad for fruits. This summer one of them (I caught it later) just during one night climbed the plum tree and bit every plum it could find (most of them) which were mostly unripe, it actually ate just a few fruits, but spoiled the rest of them.
This is when the death penalty becomes appropriate
Maria,
Yes, the possums ruined at least 10 of my pawpaws. I caught one too. Ugh, now they like pawpaws. Their families will be back next year.
Tony
Last year, I got 10% of the fruit from the below Matsumoto. The remaining fruit fed a very fat possum. That critter was not gentle either, he tore off so many branches to get to the fruit. I think I used to much nitrogen this year, the crop is much smaller.
Tube traps work well on possums. My dog scares squirrels enough that they prefer to stay away from the backyard, but possums is a different matter, they work at night.
A bobcat would be a good solution
A little terrier might do the job too. Our little Jagd female catches mice whenever we are out working at jobs that flush them. Of course the “pet” raven does too. The dogs are great at catching the larger pests like squirrels and I’m sure an opossum would be a welcome addition to the diet.
