Peach thief!

[WebSlave]

Once the peaches on this one tree started ripening, it didn't take long before some varmint found them and thought they were grown, watered, and cared for all for him to eat. I did get three of them, but there were a lot more of them that are now being converted to possum crap.

I'm trying a live trap with bait (bird feed block) that has worked pretty well in the past, but apparently this possum isn't interested in that bait. Perhaps this is one I have trapped before around the bird feeders and he found his way back "home" and now knows to avoid such things.




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joG5_50O6s0

I really don't want to shoot this critter, but the varmint broke all of the new growth branches on this tree getting to the peaches, and I have another tree close to this one which should have the peaches ripening in another week or two. So I really can't allow this thing to be damaging both of the trees.

Although it will be a while for the citrus to be ripe, we have had problems in the past with possums getting into those trees as well. I lost all of the asian pears we were growing and most of the regular pears last year to them. They are getting to be a real nuisance, it seems.

Between the possums, raccoons, deer, and squirrels ravaging everything, I'm feeling like nature has turned against us here. "Loving nature" really only sounds good in theory and when you aren't living thick in the middle of it, I guess. Or I guess over time you soon learn that loving nature becomes very selective about which forms of benign nature that deserve loving. I sure as heck would hate to be a commercial farmer and have to deal with this sort of thing battling for my livelihood day in and day out.

 

[Helenthereef]

Can you put some kind a guard around the tree trunk? Over here they nail sheets of tin around the trunks of coconut trees to stop rats climbing up.

 

[WebSlave]

Can you put some kind a guard around the tree trunk? Over here they nail sheets of tin around the trunks of coconut trees to stop rats climbing up.

That would work if I had only a small number of fruit trees to be protected, and many of them did not have low hanging branches that could cause such tree wraps to be easily defeated. A lot of our citrus trees actually more resemble bushes than they do actual trees. Connie's lemon trees don't even have any real tree trunk to speak of.

I have tried using aluminum flashing around a tree that we had put a bird block out for the woodpeckers, but the raccoons and possums were smart enough to figure out how to get to it by simply going to nearby trees, climbing up them, then down into the target tree with the bird block. As for squirrels, you can just forget about trying to outsmart them. They have a truly uncanny ability to get to things you don't want them getting into.

At least we haven't had any bears coming around and destroying trees to get to the fruit. Yet....

 

[Lucille]

Perhaps you could reconsider having a dog.

 

[E.Shell]

You need something more interesting for bait. I'd suggest getting a can of plain sardines and try a couple in your live trap.

 

[WebSlave]

There were four more really small deformed looking peaches on that one tree, so I threw them into the live trap. In the past, raccoons and possums have found those bird blocks to be irresistible. So I'm thinking it may be more that this might have been a previous captive that now knows the penalty for going into the trap to get a meal.

I've caught two raccoons very recently by the bird feeders outside the bedroom window and relocated them elsewhere. And the trap has also worked well for armadillos, however you have to set up the trap in the path an armadillo uses so they just stumble into the trap. But armadillos are VERY strong, and I actually had one trap get pretty torn up because the armadillo wanted OUT and got OUT. They had been tearing up digging burrows underneath the back steps, and I had to do something to stop that. A few years ago they dug out underneath the big propane tank for the standby generator and almost tipped the thing over when the ground collapsed.

I've only had a live trap work once for squirrels, and it was like every squirrel within miles around got the word to avoid them like the plague. Never caught another one, hence the reason that they left me no choice but the .17HMR rifle. Honestly, I used to be able to say that I regretted killing squirrels, but after last season when they completely decimated nearly all the new shoots from my largest bamboo grove, that changed something within me about them. I killed 13 or so of them last year, and there were still more coming apparently from everywhere. This year, even though spending a lot of time in the hunting blind in that bamboo grove, I only saw 4 squirrels. All on the same day. Two I killed, and then watched as a hawk swooped right in, kicked one of them to make sure it was dead, and then started eating them. (Boy I wish I had my camera with me!) I saw two more squirrels while the hawk was feeding, but I did not want to scare the hawk away, so I didn't shoot. A few days later I killed two more closer to the house, and a little later that hawk, or another one like it, swooped in and started feeding on those dead squirrels. So I am hoping that the hawk is also nabbing live squirrels too. Kind of nice having something in nature lately that seems to be on my side for a change.

 

[nickolasanastasiou]

I have this issue with my few producing fruit trees. They also steal tortoise food like crazy. I mostly do not mind the tortoise food stealing (although it probably costs me more money over the course of a year than is all that wallet-friendly), but I find the animals taking the fruit to be annoying. The dogs had helped, but they could not be everywhere at once. With my current remaining dog, he cannot manage the entire property either. I am watching the peaches and hoping I can pick them at just the right time (which the animals apparently know) so my family can enjoy them instead of them being turned into fuel for more opossums (the opossums eat rather well here). I saved one peach last year. One. Raccoons, however much I like them for being little bandit-faced bears that amuse me, have a swift end. They will do horrible things to animals I and others keep. One of my ivory sulcata males that was moved to TX is still regenerating from when a raccoon removed a significant portion of his face. They will wreck things well beyond the need of a full belly. The opossums do not harm my animals at all, but they will get any fruit they can. I try to keep them full enough to be too lazy to go for the fruit, but that is not practical on a larger piece of land than mine.

 

[bcr229]

In my area I don't have problems with raccoons or possums stealing my raspberries, but the stinkbugs and Japanese beetles will decimate them 2-3 days before the berry is fully ripe. If I want any I have to pick them early and let them ripen in a sunny window, which of course isn't nearly as good as letting them ripen on the vine.

 

[Helenthereef]

Bananas on commercial farms are often bagged on the tree to avoid damage by birds etc. Could you bag any of your fruit until it ripens? Would an opossum just rip a bag apart? I've seen plastic bags used, but also tarpaulin type material.

(I do appreciate the amount of work it would be to bag every individual lemon on a tree, just wondering it it would work for lower hanging fruit etc.)

Also wondering whether your citrus trees have thorns or not? The (practically wild) lemon and orange strains we get here are armed with 2 inch spikes on the stems - and we don't get rats climbing them. Just thinking there may be thorny varieties you might try sometime.

 

[nickolasanastasiou]

I think it would be the workload/volume issue. The opossums might or might not break the bag. The raccoons invariably would. For birds and other conditional pests, those seem pretty bang-on as options for large bunches of fruit. Maybe a potent topical spray could deter mammals since they have vanilloid receptors that could register things like capsaicin as being irritating. Then the rains which can occur often here would wash that away, but it might be a foundation for an idea. Would only need to apply it as the ripening draws near, too. "Sounds like work, Nick." I know, I know. That would be my problem with it, too. lol

The opossums here can scale the full trees easily enough (a bit clumsily, but it is passable). The raccoons can move about as well vertically as they can horizontally and nearly as quickly to boot. About half of my property can be traversed by a climbing mammal without it needing to touch the ground.

My citrus trees (which were already on the property when I moved here) have serious thorns, but they have not been producing fruit anyway. I am not sure how well the thorns deter these guys. Maybe someone who deals with citrus fruits commercially could shed some light on that. There are many groves near (by FL standards; everything takes forever to get to here) me, but I have no idea if they suffer losses, to what extent, and how much the grove owners/managers care if the volume is already prodigious and what the workload would be to protect the fraction of the yield that might be lost to mammals.

I try (hope) to protect the peaches here. My wife likes them. If not for that, I would not be concerned with opossums having at them except perhaps that the tortoises would also benefit from having them. My avocado trees are immature and my papaya plants were decimated partially by the hurricanes and then completely by the odd freezes we experienced last winter (losing them really sucked for me).

From what I gather, Rich has a much greater volume and variety of fruit-bearing trees than I do, so I would think his workload would scale up a great deal with measures taken.

 

[nickolasanastasiou]

I seriously slept for about an hour and a half tonight because I am in the peak period of breeding activity for one of the species I work with and during that exact window an opossum took the peaches that juuuuuust reached proper ripeness. I was looking at them maybe two hours ago and thinking I should pick them today. So much for that. I hope it was a female with babies or something instead of a big old male.

 

[WebSlave]

I haven't even been down to look at the peach trees lately. The yellow flies are terrible. Now I remember why Connie and I would go to Sanibel this time of year. We are getting a lot of rain now, so at least Connie and I don't have to go out to water anything.

Oh yeah, I still have that live trap out by the peach trees. I know I should check it every day, but I guess just tough luck if that possum gets in there now. I don't normally welt up from the fly bites, but I've got a pretty large welt on the back of my left shoulder from something biting me. The other day I was in the garage changing the oil in the Jeep when I looked down at my arm and there was a fly just sitting there. I didn't feel a thing but when I swatted him what seemed like an ounce of blood splattered everywhere. I didn't get any swelling from that bite, though.

These yellow flies don't mess around. They bite and bite HARD. I do hate to think that Connie and I are going to be cabin bound for a month or so because of those damn things, but that might be the reality of it. I've got the mosquito magnets working, which do seem to help, and have got a few lawn spinners on order that should help attract them to the traps. They are highly attracted to motion.

I was reading about a technique that people have had success with in helping to cut down the population of yellow flies. It involves using a beach ball or even an empty plastic milk jug, painting it black, and then covering it with a sticky substance called "Tanglefoot". You then hang it from a tree about 4 ft off of the ground in a shaded area, and the wind motion moving the coated object around attracts the flies, that wind up getting stuck to it and dying. The problem with that sort of trap around here, is that for certain we would be getting green anoles stuck to the traps, and Connie won't have any of that. Perhaps if the adhesive were just enough to hold a fly but not a lizard, that could work, though. I don't know if yellow flies are attracted to Venus Fly Traps. I don't think the sticky surfaces of the sundews would be strong enough to hold them. I have seen seeds being sold for a giant African form of thread sundew, so maybe I should look into that.

 

[WebSlave]

Walked down this morning to check the live trap after putting on a windbreaker and floppy hat to confuse the yellow flies. Nothing in the trap. So yeah, quite likely that possum learning to avoid the live traps. Unfortunate, as I may have to consider a PLAN B.