Ok… so your suggestion is to keep growing the cherry trees to feed my smoker.
Hmmm !!! . Hadn’t thought of that one.
Mike
They hang out here without much trouble. Feed them some cheap cat food. They have plenty to eat but they don’t like cat food. Fresh chipmunk is much tastier to a wild feral cat!
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Almost lost my trap yesterday…
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Victory!!!
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I think both birds and chipmunks have been having a feeding frenzy this year in my yard. I had a ton of strawberries on the plants, but only got a hand-full. I did see chipmunks running around with partially ripe (and unripe) berries in their mouths.
I didn’t get a single cherry this year from any of my trees or bushes. They went from just turning to empty. The same thing seems to be happening with mulberries, though not all are gone yet. Every time I look, everything is green, except 1-2 half dark berries. Next time I look, the same (but less fruit is on the tree).
I think I’ll get some of the traps that Derek linked. Then I need to find one that works on birds…
In terms of other things the Cherry can be used for, what about cherry-plums like Nadia and Sweet Treat? Would they be graft compatible?
I too am having some issues on my U of S bush cherries this year. First year for a heavy crop and the birds have found them as they are now ripening. Every time I’d walk to the garden, 6 or 8 birds would fly out of my 4 bushes. Went out Thursday and bought a 30’ x 30’ chunk of fishing net to cover the row, 1.25" holes in the net. Snugged it up around the base of the row and covered that with boards so my 17 year old cat (who is useless as a birder) wouldn’t get caught in the net. Friday morning I go out and there are 2 birds inside my netting, eating cherries! House sparrows I think. One flew out as I approached, the other wasn’t so quick to escape so I went away and came back an hour later and he was gone. In the afternoon I encountered another within the netting, that also flew away soon after. So the birds can fly through my netting… argh. The finer netting with 1/2" holes only came in 12’ wide rolls, and my row is 16-18’ to run top-to-bottom over the row. Anyway, I’m done with that. I hope the netting will deter most birds and I’ll lose cherries to a few brave birds. If they all figure out they can fly through the netting I don’t know what I’ll do. At least we don’t have chipmunks here, and the neighborhood squirrels don’t seem interested in the cherries.
It has been worse here too, but I think it is because of the drought. We’ve had around 3.5" of rain since the beginning of April. The yard is brown and crunchy. I saw a squirrel out foraging in the yard. They never leave the safety of the trees and bushes during the summer. The critters seem to be desperate. I’m worried the squirrels might remember the locations of the berries and come back next year. They’ve never been problem before this year.
On a positive note, I think I got the last chipmunk near the house. A juicy piece of dark cherry is what coaxed him to stick his head in the trap. I had to rotate through a bunch of different baits to get all these guys. It seems they have different preferences.
Don,
You may have heard, a lot of people here like nettings from American Nettings. Birds cannot go through. It is gentler to branches, shoots and causes very little pdamage when you remove it.
However, squirrels or groundhog can chew through it.
When I found a bird in the net three days in a row, I looked carefully (my net is green so it hrader to see). I found two holes. I blamed it on squirrels.
You can sew two pieces of netting together or find someone to sew it for you if you need wider size.
I had the disappearing cherries, too, on my Stella before the borers got it - plenty of green cherries, then !gone without a trace!
But that’s not how birds do it - birds peck and slash at the fruit, cutting holes in it, leaving part-consumed fruits and eventually bare seeds hanging from the stems, all promoting brown rot on the fruits they leave
The disappearing cherries are something else
If squirrels, they’re taking them well before ripeness
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Yeah!
What size trap are you using and roughly what is the cost you gound.
I looked online and I see a wide disparity of prices which must be due to different size…
Mike
I gave up this year between the squirrels and the birds attacking my Montmorency cherry. I will miss making sour cherry jam. My pears are growing though. . .very exciting!
I thought you netted
Itilton I usually do, however, this year I am moving and selling my house so, I left the birds go for them. Our spring as you know was so cold, that many of my trees that flowered like the cherries and plums dropped tons of fruit this year (almost all of those named). Only good berries, some apples and great pears!
BAIT REPORT FOR CHIPMUNKS
THE WAR IS NOT LOST YET !!
I could only find the JAWZ traps online but before ordering I tried Home Depot & Lowe’s where I found the TOMCAT rat trap (they have smaller for mice) See below
I set 4 out in the orchard and 3 in the blueberry bushes. At first I baited 1/2 of the traps with peanut butter and 1/2 with pieces of apples (since they were going after the apples in the orchard I figured I had it dialed in, …hah !). I got one field mouse and one chipmunk on the peanut butter and nothing on the apple.
I was making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and I love strawberry preserves (not the jam, not the jelly, just the real Smucker’s Strawberry Preserves) so I loaded the traps with what I liked.
Within two hours I got four chipmunks. And because the preserves sit deep in the “bowl”, the trap springs before they even get a chance to actually devour the bait. So I did not have to re-bait and overnight ( probably early dusk and evening) I got three more.
And because the preserves are not oily like peanut butter its real easy to rinse out the bait area when it comes to putting the traps away (I can’t leave them out during the week as I am there only on weekends and don’t want to return to some very ripe chipmunks on Friday) or when I want to freshen the bait because of the ants who found it.
The preserves are sweet and acidic and definitely have a stronger aroma than the peanut butter maybe that is the attractant.
Just putting it out there — these results are not yet ready for a submission to a “peer review” journal.
Mike
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Congratulations!
Every time I see this thread the same thought pops up in my mind. I wish I had cherries to defend. I didn’t even get any blossoms after such a warm December. . . . Maybe next year.
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I used that trap on some rats and it was very effective. Eventually the trap disappeared.
Mike, have you tried sticky boards yet. Pnut butter scented and one step on them and they are stuck. Very effective on mice and bugs.
I set mine outside in the orchard.
The sticky boards do not kill and I’d rather not come up upon a wriggling sticky mess of a still alive chipmunk. But aside from inflicting un-necessary suffering on the bastards, a wriggling chipmunk might attract birds of prey that might also get stuck.
Also, these are real easy to re-set. Just squeeze and the victim falls out of the trap right into the garbage or into the woods to be recycled and the trap is ready to be put back on duty. And with the strawberry preserves still in the holding cup in the trap I don’t even have to re-bait as often.
Mike
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Mike, you are the man!! Looks like the cherry trees are staying?
But pray tell, do you set those traps out in the open? When I have done that I wound up with missing traps like @clarkinks did, making me think something bigger came along (like I recorded and posted in the varmint report). So I had put them under inverted pots by holes in the ground. Guess I need some field mods to select the size varmint I’m after, LOL.
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