My nemesis changes. Apparent there must be a little Sadomasochism in every fruit grower. At this time rats are my nemesis and they are aformidible advesary. I played them various sounds from youtube until they exited the area. They damage various crops, vehicles, and buildings. They are diverse terrorists to a farmer which makes them hard to combat. They kill chickens one day and attack tomatos or peanuts, or pear fruit the next day.
I have shocked racoons with an electric fencer i had to wire up around my corn.
I build fences to keep out deer.
I add tree guards to protect against rabbits
A nemesis could be a vole, beetle, grub, moth, fly , locust, grasshopper, weevle etc.
I cannot properly express my hatred for deer, other than to say I relish finding their bones. Recently a state park near my work did a controlled burn to “improve deer habitat”. They are vermin, why do they need help? Wish I didn’t have houses so close so I could just shoot them all.
I got a possum that keeps digging holes. It smells the fish emulsion when I use it and then digs up the plants looking for fish. It basically has made it so I can’t use fish emulsion.
I had a racoon family that killed a chicken a day for like a month. But they aren’t a problem anymore, and now we have a massive foghorn leghorn rooster which seems to keep the critters away.
Voles and hibiscus sawflies for me. Sometimes deer, but our backyard is also a shooting range, so that does wonders at keeping out the deer.
For the voles, I just adopted 2 barn cats. Hopefully they’ll make a dent in that problem.
As for the hibiscus sawflies, I moved my hibiscus plants to a sunnier spot to reduce stress on the plants and I interplanted them with blueberries to make them a smaller target than when they were all clumped together. This year I plan to surround them with Monarda to enhance the masking effect.
Squirrels. They seem to think I grow plums and pears for them, and they are absolute hell on apricots. They don’t bother the apples as much, but still take a few.
Not allowed to shoot them, worry about poison, and hate dealing with traps. But I have to.
Armadillos seriously wreck my beautifully mulched orchard beds digging long trenches in search of grubs, worms.
When they dig at the base of cane fruit it often causes it to fall over… all roots demolished on one side.
I really enjoy squeezing the trigger on my 17 HMR to take them out.
Deer… I have to cage fruit trees to protect from rubs. I have to grow trees single stem up to around 5 ft then let them branch out and up. They love mulberry leaves and will strip the tree of any leaves below about 4.5 ft.
Squirrels… fruit thief… i planted my pears as far away from the woods as possible… middle of my orchard clearing… hope they are not brave enough to cross that open ground to get pears.
My Dad planted 2 pear trees very near his woods… squirrels took every pear long before they were ripe. I helped him trap them… but we only slowed them down.
I like to eat squirrel… especially a nice young one. I get my revenge every chance I get. 17 HMR will totally wreck a squirrel head.
I have coons, possum, skunks, crows which can all be trouble makers at times. They are on my hit list too. Trap them, feed them very fast moving hot lead.
crows are a big problem here and they love to hang out in my big spruce and pines, caw incessantly at me when im out in the yard. (they think they own it!) and land in my honeyberries trashing the new growth as well as pecking everything. i crack them with my marlin .22mag i keep near my living room window. need to shoot a couple in may to show them who’s boss.
I tolerate the other animals just trying to get by in a human dominated world.
But completely girdling a couple inches of a fruit tree seems like evolutionary stupidity. At least the sapsuckers know to make gridded holes to keep some cambium contact going upward.
@steveb4 … I have a marlin 22 mag… bought it in the 80s with fur money.
I would like to see the pile of critters that 22 mag has taken out. I squirrel hunted with it, it made the float with us on every river trapping run. I used it predator hunting … lots of fox and bobcats and coons taken with it.
I got my 17 HMR … probably 10 years ago… dont use the 22 mag much anymore. The 17 is much faster and flatter shooting… and very accurate at longer distances.
I can fence out cottontails, racoon, armadillos, deer and other little critters. I can spray insecticides. I can put up bird netting.
There are things to work around the weather, but it seems to be a more demanding pest than anything living.
Cover plants to prevent freezing. Can’t grow certain things because I’m in a frost pocket. Hail damage if we get rain, though we don’t get rain that often anymore. Shadecloth in the summer because it’s too hot. Hot/cold in the winter.
Spider mites are a close second. Nothing kills those on vegetables that I can spray in a pump up sprayer. They seem to eat neem oil for breakfast.
I build fences to keep out deer. I use nets to keep out birds, mainly catbirds. I trap and remove approximately 80 squirrels, 12 raccoons, 12 woodchucks each year. I’ve been taking out roughly 20 rabbits each year with a pellet gun but may switch to traps. I trap or poison countless mice, chipmunks, and voles.
It’s gotten to the point where I root for the coyotes. And of course I root for hawks, owls, fishers, minks.
I’ve had that marlin for about 15 yrs now. i have a cheap 3 x 9 scope on it. i sometimes bring it with me grouse hunting. when riding the woods roads you will see grouse picking grit in the road beyond shotgun range. i sometimes can get them with the .22 with a head shot. hares as well. it’s very accurate. a friend of mine has the .17 and likes it as well. i mostly went with the .22 mag for the ease of finding ammo. i can reliably hit a 4in. target at 200 yds off the door of my truck. I’ve shot some coyotes and foxes with it as well. not as flat shooting as my A.R but far more accurate like marlins are known for.
I’m surprised more suburbinites don’t own pellet guns. there are some that are as powerful as a .22 rifle. there are guys on YouTube that get paid good money to go around and remove invasives species in neighborhoods with scoped pellet guns. check out python cowboy out of F.L on there. he’s even got his pointer trained to retrieve his kills for him. impressive!
Deer.
They eat, trample, tear out, or knock over everything. I am in an urban area but we have squirrels, rabbits, groundhogs, raccoons, opossums and skunks but only the deer are overly destructive. Oh, and the neighbors “outside” cat.
Out of curiosity, what are you using to trap squirrels?
Well, if you’ve got a neighbor on the next 1/4 acre, he could easily hit you or your family or just your windows with an errant shot. Personally, I would not trust every suburban homeowner to think about where the pellet lands when he shoots at a squirrel or bird. Most town councils don’t trust him either, at least around here.
I live on a fairly large plot with nobody within 300 yards on 3 sides. So I’ve got to be really stupid to be unsafe.
Rabbits are my greatest nemesis right now. I would say cows, but outside of the garden trees and bushes can be protected from the cattle with a abatis made from sticks, but hardware cloth is needed for rabbits.
