The mystery of the missing peaches

:open_mouth:

Yesterday I lost the crop of peaches, presumably to squirrels. The fruit just disappeared; left behind were a number of broken branches. In addition to loosing a the fruit the clumsy and inconsiderate buggers cost me one of the handful of chip buds I attempted last week. I am wondering if I were to surreptitiously incapacitate the resplendent sport light my neighbors have on their garage I could encourage some owls take residence. I suspect in the next few years as things come into bearing I will be spending more time on the rodent threads than the J beetle ones that currently have my attention.

I don’t think owls get many squirrels, the squirrels are not out at night. Hawks are more likely since they are day hunters. We have lots of both and I don’t think they thin the squirrel population by much at all.

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After lots of research and a failed attempt with havahart traps, I bought the squirrelanator. It is excellent, with 2 entrances so you can catch multiple squirrels. Then you bring the trap far away to a place with ample food and release them. If there is ample food at the the new location that are far less likely to return. I crossed a river and drove 6 miles to an old apple and hazelnut orchard area to release them. It’s been a few weeks and no new squirrels have taken their place. I had 4 residents squirrels and I caught 3 to release. The 4th one I guess took the hint and left on his own accord. If I ever see signs of squirrels again I will not hesitate to put out the squirrelanator.

The reason is this:

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I’ve been having success (so far :crossed_fingers:) with yellow organza bags over all my peaches. Granted I have a dwarf tree that is very easy to bag, but it’s worth a shot. Both birds and squirrels haven’t messed with them at all, which I at least in part attribute to the yellow confusing them into thinking they aren’t ripe (and another in part to them not having discovered them yet).

Am I looking at a chewed frame of a greenhouse?? That’s brutal if so, damn bastards.

I second all the comments on feeding the damn things. My opinion on “cute” animals has changed drastically since starting a food forest :roll_eyes:

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Indeed you are looking at a chewed greenhouse vent window. This new group of squirrels were just complete anarchists in my garden. They had to be stopped. And stop them I did.

The previous squirrel I named Peanut (because he buried loads of peanut I did not give him in my garden). He and I had an understanding. He was free to squirrel about as long as he didn’t fuck with my corn or chew on any wooden structures. And for 2 years he was completely compliant. In return I let him chill here, bring the food others gave him to bury in my garden and just look cute. He never acted like a revolutionary.

Unfortunately, Peanut met his demise at the end of an Eagle’s talons. So his territory went up for grabs last autumn. And who moved in? 4 of the most abject terrorist minded squirrels I’ve ever encountered. So they were summarily marked for relocation.

All I can say about that part of the story is they are damn lucky we ain’t hungry around these parts.

Last I saw of the little fuckers, they were bounding off into a hazelnut grove to terrorize the scrub jays:

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Same thing happened to me but I only had three peaches.Something stole two of them with no trace evidence left at the scene. There is a huge raccoon that lives in a hole in a tree in neighbors yard. I’m holding out hope my one remaining Belle of Georgia survives.

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Something got my one and only aprium this year, just coming ripe.

crows stole my only and 1st redlove odysso apple. i guess the red color early isnt a benefit. yet they left my cherries right next to it alone.

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Not good…

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It really is interesting how much squirrel personalities can differ. I mainly notice it by how they behave when trapped. Some get scared to death (literally) and are dead in a few hours in the squirrelinators. Some bangbangbang their heads bloody (literally) on the trap sides. Some try to chewchewchew on the wires. Some just sit there. One squirrel actually escaped, he undid one of the top latches and I didn’t notice and he squeezed out the top when I went to give him his swimming lesson. I don’t get to know particular squirrels very well though, we probably have a hundred different ones passing through each year.

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where is your eagle now when you need him?

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I think price listed at link for squirrelinator trap was high. Maybe this is a better source. Rugged Ranch Squirrelinator Trap Only - SQRTO

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I read a fantastic book last year about a women in the UK who raises goshawk. Got me to thinking how nice it would be to have a squirrel assassin riding around the garden on my shoulder. Obviously this is a ‘flight’ or fancy and would never happen. But it certainly is nice to fantasize.

Dogs are a lot of work to care for, but if you are going to do that anyway, any fruitgrowers dog needs to be a squirrel and coon killer.

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The only animal I’ve seen take down squirrels besides dogs and cats (cats don’t usually kill enough) are foxes, although I’m sure coyotes do as well. A momma fox can clean out quite a few quickly and sometimes bring control.

That said, I protect hundreds of trees from squirrels affectively with my squirrel baffles and have often mentioned it here and yet somehow it hasn’t been widely adopted by members of this forum and I wonder why. Hell, I have a next door neighbor whose never seen baffles on my property (I don’t use them for my orchard for a couple of reasons) that is using them on his property- I don’t even know how he learned about them.

30 years ago when I started trying to protect fruit against grey squirrels here all I saw used in my area that was similar was duct pipe, which works well but is a pain to install and pretty expensive. I’m sure I’m not the first one to think of using roofing coil stapled into the trunks of trees that are trained to have no branches below 5’ of straight trunk, but I bet I’ve protected more trees for more seasons with the method than anyone you are likely to meet.

At some point I started painting them with a mixture of axel grease and motor oil so they can’t muscle there way up them. DIY Squirrel Baffle ideas? - #24 by alan

the only reason for me is that I keep my trees very short, mostly, and I’m very short too. they can jump to low branches, a baffle wouldn’t stop that.

I think it’s brilliant for people with full sized trees it seems like it would work very well

I use the pipe on trunks, but when the branches bend down under the weight of fruit, the varmints can jump to them.

Then you find a way to pull the branches up with string to the higher center of the tree or crutch them with baffled crutches. Or you just cut off the branches and save what’s above. That’s just part of the continuing battle. I usually get crop for my customers without having to kill squirrels for them.