I have been testing a new squirrel/raccoon/groundhog/possum control method this summer and so far its been working very well so I thought I’d write it up.
There have been many threads here on how baffles can work well, e.g.
But I have hundreds of trees and didn’t feel it was worth the work or cost to make hundreds of these baffles. Well mostly by accident I came across a new simple cheap fast method: just wrap a few layers of the cheap plastic grid bird netting around the trunks. The critters don’t like how their feet get tangled in it. I have been putting this on trees where the fruit was getting to the point where squirrels could get interested, and so far they have not climbed up any of those trunks. I didn’t even baffle all the neighboring trees so they could still hop over in theory, but they didn’t. Eventually I will probably do all of the trees just to be safe.
This is a couple apples I just wrapped. I cut a roll of netting off the main roll that is about 4’ long. I’m doing a couple wraps around the tree and securing in just one spot. Sometimes I don’t even need to secure it as it can grab on to the bark. The stuff is like glue, it grabs on to everything… thats what got me thinking this could work.
I don’t know how much netting is needed or how much it needs to be fluffed up (have it not just close to the trunk). The earlier ones I used more netting and fluffed it up. Here is an earlier picture I took of some bird scares but if you zoom in you can see the fluffed up netting on the trunks here:
It’s sticking out from 1-4 inches here. This stuff I can’t imagine them getting through and it might need to be more fluffed up like this to work, but it requires more netting and work to do.
I’ve only had it up for a couple months so the verdict is not fully in yet, but I’m getting optimistic. I’ll update here at the end of the season.
Yes those big guys are often a bigger problem, they are harder to trap. Usually by now I’m getting some predation from bigger animals, I know when they are around because many limbs on peach trees break. This summer that has not happened yet. The only issue I am having is birds, I’ve gotten damage on some trees that I didn’t put any bird scare tape on.
I just got back in town from a week away, and … there’s still fruit on the trees! I don’t see any losses that are not clearly from deer or birds. I stopped baiting the squirrel traps almost a month ago. I know there is a groundhog about because he dug a hole to access the crawl space under my porch. But, he’s not getting any of my fruit!
I’m getting confident enough about this method that I would recommend giving it a try. If anyone wants to try it but has questions, please ask! The main thing is to get the cheap netting with small squares (3/4”) and which are not woven rope but just one continual piece of plastic. The more expensive woven netting is not catchy enough. (The woven netting I find better for bird protection as the catchy stuff traps dozens of birds.) I can’t find the receipt for the stuff I have but I’m pretty sure its this:
This is a huge amount, I got it to protect 100’ of grapes but decided it was too much of a pain to get off to re-use so I just had it in storage for ten or more years. Amazon or other places have smaller quantities of similar netting. The average trunk takes maybe 4’x4’ to protect, so just do the math to figure out how much you need.
Were there any dead birds caught in it? Or they don’t land on the tree that low? That’s my fear with loose sticky netting. Tragically killed two songbirds birds last year with the cheap stuff.
So far no birds have been caught in it. They don’t try to land on vertical trunks so it’s generally out of their way.
I stopped using this kind of netting on my blueberries exactly for the problem of catching birds. I definitely don’t recommend it for bird control, only the woven stuff for that!
Pretty sure the cheap amazon 100x100 crap I got for $20 is even stickier than what you got. You can’t do anything without it grabbing on to something. I’m going to put some on mine tomorrow.
Years ago when I first got it I made the mistake of trying to put some over strawberries. A bird got caught in it then other animals got caught in it trying to eat the bird. Ripped up the whole area.
I would love this if this works- but two months or two years is not a lot of evidence unless it is a bad year and unprotected trees nearby are stripped.
Here, wildlife pressure has tended to be quite low, with a few exceptions- one site I usually have to baffle, but we’d given up on it because of extreme bear pressure, provided a harvest of J. plums from two trees. This is historically a very high pressure site where some years I have to both baffle and net. At my own site, squirrels have been absent and I’ve only had to kill two coons and a possum since fruit started ripening.
Please keep us posted- these would save me many hours of work when I’d rather be thinning peaches and doing late spring pruning. Mine don’t take very long to set up though, once you have a method. Only about 10 minutes a tree counting painting the metal with oil-grease mix. Maybe 15 the first year when you have to cut the metal.
I know that squirrels don’t like that monofilament netting because I’ve seen them running to wooden posts that hold up a fence of the stuff instead of taking the closer exit and going right up the netting. But they had an option.
This year I didn’t do the best trapping job in the back orchard and the squirrels were getting every early ripe peach back there. I got zero Gold Dust and zero Arctic Glo this year, not even a taste I put the netting up and I am now harvesting a full treeload of Flavortop, which sits between these two varieties. I also have some fully loaded Euro plums back there.
Have you seen squirrels on your property since the installation? That would be the clincher for me- at least to try it. Otherwise, it could possibly be the result of a predator showing up.
Any thoughts on how high a squirrel can jump? From the ground vs from a branch?
I’ve been pruning to increase low branches for easy maintenance. I also have some currant bushes growing under my trees. I could shorten the shrubs and prune some of my lower branches if this is going to work.
I’ve seen some, but many fewer. The question is if this is due to a predator, or the fact that there is no big food reservoir here any more. I don’t see any catbirds now that the berries are all gone.
This idea is very much an experiment at this point. Maybe try it on a few trees and see how it does.
By the way the whole idea of baffling a trunk I got from your success with it; those baffles were too much work for me so this is an attempt at an easier and cheaper version. One other advantage is you don’t really notice them, I often think I didn’t baffle a tree but then when I get right up to it I see that I did.
I get that, and that’s why I’m asking these questions. I’d love to have a simpler system and not to have to use the oil-grease mixture. It’s messy and if it drips on young tree trunks it can kill them.
I put the netting up and I am now harvesting a full treeload of Flavortop, which sits between these two varieties. I also have some fully loaded Euro plums back there.