Seems that in the last week or two something(s) have been marauding my tomato patch . I thought I had it better protected ... yesterday afternoon I set up my game cam in the corner where they've been eating their ill-gotten gains , only to discover there are 3 shifts ... late afternoon/early evening , the squirrels dine , then after dark the raccoons come in , followed later by the 'possums . Looks like I need to improve the protection out there . I have to admit , the west side is hard to get to because of the wild blackberries and I've let the chicken wire and 'lectric wires get overgrown a little . It's been working so well until recently that I've become complacent , and that's gotta end . I'm not certain if they're crawling under the chicken wire or going over , probably the latter since there are sags that weren't there when I installed it . Either way , I'll be out there today tightening things up in an effort to stop it - all the ripe or nearly ripe 'maters are gone , and they've started in on the green ones , I gotta do something or this will be the end of tomato season for this year . And I've got a lot more jars to fill .
OK , I know most of y'all don't have the conditions I do here living out in the woods . So trap the l'il sucker , carry him out into the woods (so to speak) and cap him there .
If I could shoot out back, I'd use my .22LR. Trapping laws vary and around here you can trap and kill but not release off your property. I trap and release anyway. When I was still working in the lab with access to chemicals an older chemist told me to pour a bottle of chloroform down the groundhog's burrow where the heavy vapor would settle underground in the tunnel bottom. Groundhog would go in and get anesthetized permanently. It worked for one in my back yard.
I have a lot of customers up in the mountains. The have to build fully enclosed enclosures if they want a garden. And they have to line the floor with bricks or tile to keep critters from digging under the walls. The enclosures look pretty, but they tend to be awfully small. Would only fit 1/5 of my garden.
Squirrels too . Unless you get a head or upper spine shot they ain't hangin' around . I've seen them drag themselves off and claw their way up a tree with their back legs totally dead . I have declared war on the local squirrel population , they are apparently the major destroyers of my tomato patch .I figger if I kill all the ones that know there's a bounty there , the better chance the few tomatoes left will have a chance . There are still a lot of blossoms ... and they too deserve a chance . TOMATO LIVES MATTER !
Friend in a nearby development uses subsonic .22LR on them. Another, bothered by them, asked what to do and I suggested a pellet gun but now he uses his shotgun as with 40 acres he can do anything. He just wanted to keep them out when he was not around. Squirrel population bounces back but if you get rid of the locals that are already hanging around you probably remove most of the problem. They look cute but are nothing but tree rats.
Funny you should mention shotguns ... I was considering using one , kinda like an instant gratification thing . I also (usually) use subsonic .22 ammo , and they seldom expire on the spot .
I guess it depends on the noise level you can get away with. I can't shoot in my yard most of the time and the critters are not around when I might be able to shoot them. That's the beauty of a trap, it is always there and waiting to trap them. Then you can dispatch them in the trap as it can be a nuisance to transport a lot of them. I once had to take a half dozen trips to release squirrels before I finally caught the groundhog I was after.
Frank , I live 12 miles from the nearest town in a clearing out in the woods ... noise is not a problem . There are neighbors , but we can only see one of them . In the winter , when the trees are bare .
Trouble may come if someone hears a shot when not expected. I'm thinking of incident in friends deer camp that had neighbors calling the game warden in on us to check the camp. One of the hunters there had fired a few tracer rounds after dark just to see what they looked like and somebody living maybe a quarter mile away called the game warden.
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