There is something outside eathing the corn that isn't quite ready to be picked. I think it's squirrels, but I never catch the squirrels actually in the corn. I think they're getting it late at night, but don't know. I see the squirrels running all over the place during the day but they seem to be really active first thing in the morning just as the sun is coming up.
I've covered one cob in cayenne pepper and that cob was
100% polished off. The squirrels I am 100% sure came over from Mexico across the Gulf of Mexico. :-(
I've read that birds could be eating the corn, because the cayenne pepper does nothing to protect against birds. Two little poodles do nothing and niether do the family cats. I've even thrown certain half-eaten cobs into another area and covered them with cayenne pepper. The squirrels seem to love cayenne pepper.
Deer love corn too. Do you have deer in you neighborhood. Look for deer tracks in the rows of corn. Unfortunately there isn't any fool proof method of stopping them except if you harvest the venison for the freezer.
There are no raccoons around. The city of St. Petersburg outlaws them in the city because if they're out there, they're
90% likely to be rabid I'm told.
It might be birds... I've never caught them. We do have some wild foxes reported and I think I saw one a couple months ago, but it ran by so quickly down the alley, and I don't think a fox would be able to get over the fence, and the poodles would definitely hear anything jumping over the fence and would go nuts. They go nuts when a quiet car goes by. There are a ton of squirrels and birds out but I never see anything eating it. And the squirrels are alittle friendly if you look like you have food in your hand, the neighbor feeds the squirrels.. we find peanut shells all over the place. And the size of the animal is heavy enough... and there are some good sized fat Mexican squirrels out there... I'm sure they're Mexican... :-) It's driving me nuts!
I am 90% sure that it's not raccoons. I've never seen a raccoon here. But what do I know ? I haven't seen or caught the critter that is eating the corn. I'm assuming it's squirrels because they can climb pretty well and it looks like one jumped from a nearby tree onto a corn stalk and broke the top of the stalk in half. The stalk was just over 7 feet high, and it's now 3.5 feet high, so it really looks like something jumped onto the top of the stalk, broke it and then walked back over and climbed up another stalk. :-) Dern squirrels that like cayenne peppers, came fresh over on a boat from Mexico, green papers in paw.
While we were down in Mexico we saw, what we thought were squirrels, outside our hotel window in the trees. It turned out that they were RATS, really big rats, that could climb trees (they were trying to get the giant cockroaches).
I don't think what you have is Mexican Squirrels.......it sounds more like coon asses..............Cajun Squirrels ;^P, seriously, raccoons are devistating to ripe corn. Raccoons WASH OFF THEIR FOOD FIRST..................So if something is eating your corn despite the layer of cayanne pepper powder, then what you has is some Acadian squirrels from around the bayou area with a love of gumbo................. madgardener (Mexican squirrels would insist on raiding your tomato/chili's patch to make salsa..........................)
I'm going to hang put some automatic shocks on the orange tree and maybe a sombrero too... I left a radio out that played country music, but that didn't seem to do anything. Maybe if I put the radio in the alley and tune it into some Korn "Low Rider" music ?
There are no deer. And there used to be rats in the area, but we've not seen any rats in a very very long time and the oranges are still on the orange tree getting ready to turn orange. And yes they were tree climbing rats. They loved to eat oranges and grapefruit. We haven't seen those in ages... thought we killed them all.
I did find a green card, I wasn't able to read the information on it, it looked like squirrel-ese. It had a couple scratches on it, a couple stick figure looking things, some fuzzy looking heads, a fat kernel and a sombrero.
I took it to the immigration office and they said it was a legitimate green card and that they are legalized to harvest corn...
:-(
It might be birds. I woke up at six in the morning to see if I could catch them. Daylight didn't start to make it's way around until 6:45.
There were squirrels all over the place. Birds everywhere watching things. The neighbor feeds the squirrels... I grabbed the bottle of cayenne pepper and sprinkled it on a half-eaten corn. A squirrel started to approach... but it stopped on a branch about 10 feet away.
It was grinning, staring at the bottle of cayenne pepper in my hand. :-( It held up a Mexican flag and flirted with me, by wiggling it's tail in the air.
I went in the house and put some kibbles and bits out there, and it started doing the salsa...
Smart salsa shaking squirrels... I'm going to put a hangman's noose out on the corn tonight.
Jim, what kinda drugs you on honey? you need to take a break and just relax. Maybe make yerself a margarita, send out for some enchilada's, take in a movie..........I hear Pancho Villa starring himself with Antonio Banderis is excellent............... madgardener
Just because they're outlawed don't mean they're not there. Last one I checked with didn't seem to care much about reading law books.
Unless St. Pete has a vector control program of the most exceptional diligence, dollars to donuts there are raccoons there. There are in just about every mild-climate city in the US. They adapt really well to suburbs and are thought to be more abundant now than they ever were.
I hear ya. I've left a bottle of beer out there. I've seen coon go for beer in the past. The bottle was still out there the next day. Not even touched. What coon would pass up on such an offer.
The news reported that some foxes were re-introduced into Tampa (across the bay) and they were reporting that the foxes were eating people's cats and dogs and if a fox was seen, to report it to animal control.
We've been getting some good rain everyday so the cayenne pepper washed off. Used up a whole bottle of that stuff on the corn plants. I've made a scare-uhh-crow and am hoping that will work. We've got a couple poodles that bark at any noise outside... they go nuts and I've never seen a coon out here.
From what I know in the past when I last saw a coon, it was at a campground and it happened to open up a cooler and grab a bottle of beer out of the cooler. I was a teenager when that happened and dem coons are smart. The one that stole the beer walked around with a degree that stated B.S. which I assumed meant, "Beer Snatch". ;-)
In the meantime, I'll keep my eyes open for some coons. There anything that would attract a coon that squirrels wouldn't bother with ? I'm sure if there are coons around, they'd be smart enough to walk into the house through the doggy door. And the cats would probably through a fit if they saw a coon in the house, as would the poodles.
On Sun, 08 Aug 2004 21:51:28 GMT, "Jim Carlock" wrote: [snip]
We have a fig tree, and the local raccoons are masters at figuring out when the figs are ripe and raiding the tree just before I think the figs are ready to pick. Our dog goes bananas when they come around. One time she treed a whole family of them; we brought her inside because we didn't want her finding out what kind of fighters they are.
Because raccoons are quite a bit bigger than housecats and very dexterous, they will take things that squirrels, rabbits, or rats wouldn't bother with or would just nibble on and leave there.
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