Brainstorming ideas for modular wildlife protection cages/enclosures

[rossn]

Looking for ideas on modular wildlife protection cages.

Due to our whacky weather, I have planted about 1/3 of my trees in containers for the years when we get no in-ground production. Unfortunately, we have a lot of fox squirrels and raccoons, which are our main offenders. In particular, I’m thinking of modular cages that my container plants can be moved into when the fruit is approaching harvest, not year round.

I’m brainstorming ideas for making some modular cage panels, that can then be assembled in varying configurations. Rougly speaking, these panels would be made of welded angle steel (likely 1") with 1" 16 gauge welded wire. I think 16 gauge chicken wire may also be an option.

Based on angle steel coming in 20’ lengths, I’m thinking of making the panels 5’ x 10’ that can easily be stored flat. These could then be assembled in different configurations: panels vertical (10’ tall), panels horizontal (5’ tall); single or double wide.

Anyone have any lessons learned or care to share any ideas on this or a related design?

[Audi_o_phile]

@rossn

welded angle steel (likely 1") with 1" 16 gauge welded wire. I think 16 gauge chicken wire may also be an option.

That sounds like a lot of weight, time and money, as well as a storage headache, plus an injury waiting to happen when panels falls over. @Olpea is another fellow with metalworking experience but he might disagree with me on this when I suggest that creative usage of electric fencing would more easily accomplish the end goal you are looking for.

[rossn]

I wouldn’t build anything that’s going to be able to fall over, and 30 lbs isn’t all that much weight. I haven’t heard of anyone being successful keeping out squirrels with electric fencing, but am glad to hear about that if it’s a simple setup.

[Audi_o_phile]

@rossn

if it’s a simple setup.

Tell us about the lay of the land. Where are the trees during the part of the growing season that you are concerned about? Do you have a 20 foot by 20 foot concrete patio where you keep all of the potted trees? Are they scattered across an acre and a half of undulating hillside? For combatting raccoons and squirrels I would consider the following, but there might be a better way to arrange the fencing.

@Paddy

The only thing I found that works 100% is an electric fence. Not just your standard hot wires spaced every 8 inches, squirrels can jump through or jump on a post. They need a ground to get zapped. For my 100’ to 50’ orchard, I use 24 inch tall chicken wire with the bottom at/below ground level. Two inches above the chicken wire begins the hot wires. This keeps squirrels out.

[Olpea]

@Audi_o_phile

That sounds like a lot of weight, time and money, as well as a storage headache

The panels would indeed be heavy. Steel angle iron 1-1/2" X 3/16" (smallest and lightest I’d try to go with a 5’ X 10’ panel) would weigh about 54 lbs. 16 gauge X 1" steel wire adds another 37 lbs. That’s without any braces in the panels. Those are pretty big panels to go with just a picture frame border and no internal bracing. Probably work, but they are going to be flexi.

If you wanted a protective enclosure, is there a reason you can’t build a permanent one? Perhaps some HOA restriction? My daughter had squirrels eating her tomatoes and built an enclosure which doesn’t look too bad. The top is covered and she built a little door to enter the enclosure.

The key to making a fence look good is to make sure it’s very straight (not weavey), no saggy parts, and no parts leaning (which can take some thought when building an enclosure). If a fence is done right, it can actually add to the appearance.

Here’s a topic @tonyOmahaz5 started when he finished his fence.

Finally got the 6 feet tall fenced area ready for planting 60 fruit trees for deer protection

It took me 4 days to filled the 8 inches thick of mulch to the fenced area away from the deers. This 20 feet by 180 feet high density growing with 60 fruit trees. Jujube: Panzao, Icy sweet, Baby red, Sandia, Honey Jar, new Large honey jar from China, Sugarcane, own rooted Orange beauty, own rooted Honey Jar, own rooted Vegas booty. Peaches: Saturn donut, Red Haven. And a few others. Nectarine : Honey series and a donut nectarine. A few sweet and tasty apples: Clark crabapple, Rubbineete, Red F…

I know that’s not the type of fence you are looking at, but mention it as a point that fencing of any type can look good, if done right.

Here’s a pic of my fence. It’s a rural deer fence, but by rural standards, it looks pretty good.

[krismoriah]

I would think this would be easier.

Tree Pro Grow Tubes

[rossn]

@Audi_o_phile , @Olpea , @krismoriah - thank you for the feedback… all feedback is welcome and helps reveals flaws and new ideas.

The reason I’m looking at some form of a cage is to protect mature, smaller trees from losing their harvest to (mainly) raccoons and fox squirrels. They’re both viscous on the fruit here when it starts to get ready for harvest; sometimes clearing out half or more of a tree overnight. Plums I’ve seen some bird damage, but unclear what type of bird that is.

I don’t see this as a seasonal thing, rather for particular trees that get hit hard and for just a month or so when the fruit becomes most attractive.

I have a few different situations where I’d use the cages/enclosures:

1. I have a dozen or so fruit trees in containers (up to 30 gal) in the driveway currently. Most will continue to live there. I see myself having a cage that can accommodate 3-4 of these trees at once, where they’d only live there for a month or so.
2. I may let some of the above containers root-in elsewhere on the lot
3. I have a number of lower height trees planted in the yard. Some are close to objects (hedge, taller trees, etc) where squirrels can jump onto the tree.

• Most of my pears will be kept at 12’ or less (maybe 10’ with some summer pruning of the tips).
• All my new apples are being grafted onto Bud 9 roots, so should stay 10’ or less here.
• Peaches - adjacent to a hedge, expecting 11-12’ in diameter and 8’ high or so.
• E and hybrid Plums - all open center… I’m not sure how large they will get.

My trees are semi-grouped, but not really across the 1 acre property.

We also grow veggies. Squirrels have been decimating the summer squash, cucumbers, melons, and winter squash.

The reason for modular was that I could link panels together to make larger cages or even turn them sideways in areas of the garden, as needed, depending on the time of the season. I was not thinking of tons of cages, maybe 3-4 that could be moved to strategic locations as needed. I’m a cry once, buy once type of guy and would want something that will have a long life.

Adam - I like the idea of the electric fence comment you mentioned. A decade or so ago, I did a similar thing with raised beds. It was reasonably effective for squirrels. I think if I setup something like that here with welded wire on the bottom, I suspect the raccoons would just knock it over. But worth brainstorming on further.

Olpea - Nice looking fence you have there. In my case, I think fence won’t help with these critters. Thanks for your thoughts on the steel option. I agree, I’ve cursed every time I’ve had to install hardware cloth or welded wire and tension it… a reall PITA, and a lot of tension needed to get it looking right. That was one detail I hadn’t figured yet on the thinner frames.

I was not aiming for a very burly frame… just enough to hold the wire sufficiently and deter the smaller wildlife. Picture frame type setup with welded wire attached to the back side. Originally I was thinking I might get away with 1" x 1/8" angle. My thought being that no panel needs to stand alone, rather they will be bolted to adjacent panels with 3 or 4 bolts, thus doubling up the members and adding a fair bit more rigidity.

That said, I looked at the deflection and going from 8’ to 10’ significantly increases the deflection for a 20lb load. Going from 1" x 1/8" angle to 1-1/4" x 1/8" angle effectively halves the deflection to 1/2" over 10’ with 20lb load on a single member (not doubled up) for about a 25% weight penalty. 5x10 frame would weigh in at 31lbs, and a 4x10 frame would weigh in at 29lbs. A horizontal brace could be added of much lighter stock at mid-way for not much weight, but that only helps deflection in one direction.

I think you should check your numbers on the welded wire, though. For 1" galvanized welded wire (16 ga), I’ve verified 11.5lbs on a 5x10 and 9.2lbs on a 4x10. 1/2" hardware cloth about 25% lighter. Now 5’ is really limited in options/availability, but 4’ much more common. I am thinking that 5’, however, is really a better width for small trees. Now attachment… I have not truly noodled that yet, and it may not be easy. I am all ears on any ideas you may have for attaching welded wire or hardware cloth.

The 1-1/4" x 1/8" angle runs about $1/ft, and 3/4" EMT is about the same, but way more flexible, and it can’t be bolted for rigidity like the angle. Really I’d have to go to 1-1/4" EMT to get reasonable deflection and is about $2.90/ft, weighing about the same as 1-1/4 Angle @ 1/8". And then, water rusting out the inside is a different problem.

Open to all other ideas here.

@krismoriah - Haven’t seen those before, so thanks for introducing me. In this case, I’m hoping to protect harvest from mature fruit trees, albeit smaller ones.

Thanks all, keep the ideas coming in!

[Bakeapple]

@rossn

I’m a cry once, buy once type of guy and would want something that will have a long life.

This is a great philosophy, and an approach that I try to take too. But I’ve also found that in gardening there are so many particular variables—living ones that adapt constantly to everything you do—that sometimes it’s necessary to use a combination of different approaches for protection and sometimes a thing that works one year won’t completely work the next.

A couple of potential problems I imagine with modular metal cages are:

1. That squirrels and raccoons are able to dig, so might just go under the cages.

2. In my experience they will make observations from one year to the next about when a fruit is ready, vs. when it disappears. This means that they might start expanding the length of season in which they go after the fruit, increasing the pest pressure on trees when they aren’t caged. And if you don’t protect each tree in time you’ll lose the crop. I have to put netting over my haskap bushes in the spring as soon as the buds barely begin to swell or the deer will strip them all off. I’ve been too late three out of the last five years.

3. Looking at a caged tree makes me sad. I know this sounds a bit silly, and it might not be a problem for you at all, but I have adjusted my plant protection methods to be as minimal as possible. Mostly because I don’t like thinking about pests and I want to see the unadulterated beauty of the trees as much as I can.

4. I can’t imagine there’s really enough time between ripening periods to move the cages from one tree to another in most cases. You’ll probably need to cage most of your trees at the same time to give sufficient protection.

What I do for protection is place three six foot wooden stakes in a triangle, each five feet apart, around each tree I need to protect, then staple deer netting to two stakes and add one extra third of a wrap to create an overlapping door, which I secure at the base with a stone. This provides a lot of deer protection and let’s me easily open the cage up to walk in. Raccoons don’t like touching it and have never climbed my trees. I finally removed the first net cage I put up on a cherry tree after six years last spring and, now that it’s 15 feet tall and well established, I haven’t needed to put the net back on. It’s a simple, cheap, lightweight and easy to use method and I’ve found it effective. I also make little fruit bags out of frost cloth—you can buy organza ones, but they’re a bit expensive. I started this to protect grapes from raccoons and they work as long as the fruit isn’t left too long. Eventually they will start squishing the bags of grapes, but they’re extraordinarily fragrant—you can smell them ten feet away—by that point. I lose some bags every season, but I reuse them for each fruit during the season as it ripens. They completely prevent bird and insect damage on my cherries.

I have also seen people growing in ground fruit trees in small tunnel greenhouses 6-12 feet high. Building something like that might not be much more expensive than building cages, and you could still move potted trees around as needed.

Squirrels are rarely a problem on fruit and vegetables here and I wonder if they’re worse there because they’re looking for water in your drier climate. Maybe if you provided an alternate source of water away from the food plants it would reduce some of the pest pressure. You could also trap the little vermin.

Sorry, I know those weren’t exactly the answers you were looking for—these thoughts are just based on my experiences in a totally different environment. I do think maybe you’d have an easier time with one or two simpler approaches, though.

[Phlogopite]

For squirrels and racoons, if and only if they can’t parachute down from taller trees at the edge of the property

Start the scaffolds at 5-6’ and wrap the trunks in aluminum flashing so they can’t climb up

Will it require your scaffolds to be higher than you originally planned? Probably but this is pretty much the only 100% effective solution for squirrels

[Olpea]

@rossn

I think you should check your numbers on the welded wire, though. For 1" galvanized welded wire (16 ga), I’ve verified 11.5lbs on a 5x10 and 9.2lbs on a 4x10.

You’re right. I must have been looking at something different than 16 gauge wire.

@rossn

Now attachment… I have not truly noodled that yet, and it may not be easy. I am all ears on any ideas you may have for attaching welded wire or hardware cloth.

About the only thing I can think of is weaving down a small piece of round bar through the mesh one one end, then using maybe three J bolts to crank it tight (as a sort of mini fence stretcher). To fasten to the other end, you’d just have to drill holes in the angle iron and feed then ends of the wire mesh through the angle iron, and then wrap around.

If you don’t care if the mesh is tight, you could skip the little homemade fence stretcher and just attach it through holes drilled in the angle iron, or just wrap it all the way around the angle iron.

I would think coons would climb your panels. They are very good climbers. I suspect the reason Bakeapple has successfully excluded coons with deer netting is that it’s so flexible the coons don’t want to climb it. But that’s just a guess.

I use electric fence on my deer fence to keep coons out. Possums will dig under the fence.

[Bakeapple]

@Olpea

I would think coons would climb your panels. They are very good climbers. I suspect the reason Bakeapple has successfully excluded coons with deer netting is that it’s so flexible the coons don’t want to climb it. But that’s just a guess.

I think it’s a combination of that and they get their little hands tangled in it. My nets are very weak, they could probably rip them down if they were determined enough, so definitely couldn’t climb them.

I don’t have very much raccoon pressure though. There’s only a few and they mostly just eat grubs here.

[rossn]

Fully agree on the needing to use a combination of approaches, and I don’t think enclosures are for every situation, but having a few that can be used would be very helpful.

In the case of the plants on the drive (pic below), I won’t have to worry about any burrowing. In the future I might have 8-12 of those 24" containers with another 6-8 5-gallon figs. Burowing might be possible in the yard, but while we have lots of squirrels and raccoons, I’m not the only one with fruit trees around… one diagonal property has 50 year old trees, and my neighbor has some newer apples. Meaning, I think they may not need as much discouragement and will not work as hard to get into an enclosure as in some other’s situations.

We have a lot of coons here… this is an area with dense mature trees, including on my lot.

I’d prefer not a cage, too - but I do want to eat the fruit! Easiest thing is to have an enclosure I can roll them into at the right time. If it can handle 4 of the 24" containers, I should be pretty good. 6 would be even better

In my case, I don’t think I’ll need to cage most at the same time. I think of early peaches and cherries (June to mid July), Apricots (mid-July to end of August), Figs (September) at another harvest, Earlier Pears/Apples/Plums (sept-Mid-Oct), Later Pears/Apples/Plums (Mid-Oct to Nov).

I have tried bagging the fruit in nylon bags, but the wildlife attempt to chew through them, and ultimately I find the fruit on the ground in the bag, usually destroyed.

I really like your teepee idea, and will consider that for the raccoons. I’m not sure if that will keep out the squirrels. Thanks for sharing this one.

One could make the argument that setting up a small tunnel would make sense. Advantages would be that it keeps out birds, protects against hail and likely frosts. Drawbacks, it has to be maintained daily or risk losing the plants from overheating and I’m not sure it would look very good in the driveway for the neighbors. Perhaps one with the top 1/2 fully attached with sides that roll up 4’ with mesh underneath would be ideal. My sunny spot moves back in the fall, and moving such a structure may be more difficult, due to weight and complexity of construction. But, I’m chewing on it.

Appreciate the brainstorm!

[rossn]

Yeah, we have LOTS of trees on the property and the fruit trees are both in clusters and scattered about. Definitely have peaches and pears within jumping distance from other 16+’ pear and a tall hedgerow.

I’m using shorter trees here, at least for apple - Bud9 - will be about 10’ish, so they need to start low.

[rossn]

I like your pull-bar/j-bolt idea. I’d have to think how to incorporate that adjustably and still be able to bolt two panels back to back. Neat and tight would be idea, since it’s at the entrance to the house, but some sacrifies may be made.

I would totally expect the coons to climb the panels, but by building panels 2x high as wide, then A panel can be fastened as the roof (and a half size panel for small installs). Of course getting all those bolt holes standardized will be a pain.

I think some sort of enclosure in the drive makes sense, but I have to make it easy to break down for the winter, as I plow in the driveway. The alternate to the cage for 4-6 trees (modular ideal to grow or contract it) would be a tunnel, but thinking how to make that work with minimal maintenance and to keep out critters.

Any other ideas, I’m glad to hear 'em.

[rossn]

Anyone know how successful single layer poly tunnels with keeping out raccoons and squirrels? I would think they would just smell the fruit and open the plastic with their claws or teeth.

[Bakeapple]

I actually just leave them open. Here’s one with a young peach tree in it:

I lift a rock at the bottom front to open it like a little door.

They have the downside of collapsing under snow a bit in the winter sometimes, but I’ve found I can usually go without doing much more than pulling the net back up or straightening the stakes for several years at a time.

Squirrels could get in if they could jump from somewhere nearby or decided it was worth it to chew through the net. I think it comes down to how motivated they are. I see why you’re considering metal cages.

I’ve heard of rodents being a problem in greenhouses because they can tunnel in. Most people I know who get a rodent in their greenhouse have to trap it to get rid of it.

[rossn]

Thanks for that pic. I like hearing it holds up year round.

The ‘organza’ bags I used were very thick woven nylon, rather stiff. The squirrels seemed to have trouble chewing all the way through about 1/2 of them, but based on that would think they’d be motivated to chew through that style of a net.

What I can’t figure out is why isn’t someone making a netting like yours out of kevlar?

[Bakeapple]

I wonder if you could use Dyneema for that purpose? You can usually get it from ultralight backpacking gear suppliers. No one—birds, raccoons, rodents—gets into my row cover bags. The raccoons can claw them open but it ruins whatever’s inside and they usually give up after one or two. The birds can’t see the ripe fruit, and there is easier food around, so they ignore them, and the rodents aren’t a big problem…but that’s because of a different kind of metal cage. (I actually only trap them if they come into the house, but squirrels don’t really eat fruit here)

[Olpea]

@rossn

I’d have to think how to incorporate that adjustably and still be able to bolt two panels back to back.

I suppose you could overbore the angle iron in the places the j-bolts and nuts stick through. That would probably be the easiest.

I use annular cutters most of the time to drill big holes. You can use a good quality bi-metal hole saw, but annular cutters work a lot better because they carry the chips out of the bore. The flutes go all the way up the sides and carry the chips out of the bore.

Here are a couple pics so you can see the difference, if you aren’t familiar with them:

Annular cutters are made for a mag drill, but I use them in my mill with an adapter. My brother bought a set of short annular cutters from Home Depot, for something like 85 bucks. They were necked down so they would chuck in a regular hand drill, and had a pilot bit. After a quick search I can’t find them, but I bet with the right search someone could find them. I don’t think Home Depot called them annular cutters. They called them something else.

A regular annular cutter has a 3/4" shank so it would take a pretty big drill to chuck one (or a mag drill). Hougen makes the best imo. They make them a little extra long for resharpening (since they are so expensive, it pays to have them resharpened). They even have a resharpening service for their cutters. And they are American made. If treated nicely, they are colbalt and will bore lots and lots of holes, a whole lot easier than a big drill bit.

I only mention this because for years I struggled with drill bits for boring large holes. It takes a lot of horsepower to turn a large drill bit, and it heats up the work piece and the drill bit a lot more, because they remove so much more material than an annular cutter.

Back to your panels, another option would be to make the angle a bit bigger and use equal leg angle. Then weld an oversized nut on the leg you aren’t using to bolt the panels together. Then use two nuts which fits the j-bolts on either of the oversided nut. Then bore a hole in the other leg where the threads of the j-bolt can stick through. Then use the two nuts on either side of the welded oversized nut to tighten and lock your fence into the panel. Then use the threads of the j-bolt which stick through the angle iron to bolt your next panel up.

Complicated and a lot of engineering. But you sound like you might be an engineer, and may be up to the task

[rossn]

I had not thought of a dyneema net, only kevlar. Climbing equipment is often made of dyneema. Tough stuff.

Turns out they do make dyneema nets… here’s an example of a 1-3/4" baseball net made of it. Just expensive (about $150 for 5x10). Dyneema does break down some in light, too. Good thinking though.

Truly amazing that your squirrels don’t eat fruit. Curse the day someone teaches them!