Squirrel(s) are eating my tomatoes!

[dice]

As long as he doesn't eat box turtles (they
eat slugs and snails).

[Hilde]

Update:

It looks like that little squirrel is outsmarting me completely! The huge amount of bait that is gone must have been moved to some hiding place for the winter while he is continuing eating my tomatoes! The reason I think that is:

1. He is still alive
2. I found several pieces of bait on the back porch, far from where I put it.

I am now taking this war to another level. I will get a Havaheart live trap. I am hoping that if I trap him and let him lose in a wooded area somewhere, we will get to eat our tomatoes and what is left of the blueberries.

He is a little teaser this one, he is hanging out in the porch, knowing that we can see him, and with a tomato on the side, just to show us that: "Here I am, eating your tomatoes and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it". I took a picture of him today. Here he is. Soon (depending on how fast they ship it), we will see if he can outsmart the Havaheart live trap. :-)

The Azoychka is ready to be picked in a couple of days, I think, and the squirrel has yet to bite into them.

Hilde

[bcday]

Um, isn't that a chipmunk? Cute little critter, but they can be destructive. I had a family of them roaming the neighborhood last year.

What size trap did you order? If you specified "squirrel", the spaces between the wires might be big enough for a chipmunk to get out.

[Hilde]

It's a chipmunk? Wow! The trap that I ordered says:
"Havahart Squirrel, Chipmunk & rat trap". So hopefully I can trap this little fellow with it, no matter what it is that he is!

If they are destructive, maybe I should have ordered 2nd day air instead of UPS ground for the trap.

The Azoychka is still good, it only seems to touch the cherry tomatoes and blueberries.

Hilde

[bcday]

Well, not as destructive as my dog is when she sees a chipmunk!
The chipmunk went into the garage through a small gap. The dog tried to claw her way in through the same gap to get the chipmunk. I was afraid I wouldn't have a garage left. Had to block off the area so the dog couldn't get to it.

Seriously, chipmunks are rodents and they will dig and chew. Cute lil critters though.

[dice]

He probably thinks how wonderful you are for
planting all of these blueberries and tomatoes
just for him. The bait on the porch was perhaps
a plea to bring back the old bait, which he liked
better.

The bigger versions of those traps work well for
possums and raccoons (dry cat food works for bait).
I haven't tried the squirrel-sized one yet.

[dcarch]

http://www.pestproducts.com/rat_zapper.htm

very effective.

dcarch

[Zana]

I agree with bcday, that chipmunks can be destructive. We've got a family of them living in the "neighbourhood". I regularly come out to see the lid off the composter. They've chewed right through the hard plastic of the composter, usually in the area where there vent slits - smart critters, gives them a place to start. So there are some holes as big as 6" inches diameter in the newer composter and smaller ones in the older one. I'm thinking I'm going to have to find more like the older one....since its easier to access the contents anyway, but its seems to be more difficult for the little beggars to chew through. I've finding corn cobs the past week - yipppppeee local corn is now in full season, so we've been having full meals of it - on the ground, in about a 15' radius of the composter. I think they wait for the nightly dump into the composter for their own dining pleasure. Grrrrrrrrrrrr.
I'm going to be harvesting compost from the composter later this week, its about ready. So maybe the non-ready stuff will be less accessible once the level drops significantly.

As for squirrels, we have some bold as brass ones in our backyard. They sit at the feeder or on the window sill in front of the dinette area and torment our Westie. Almost got the one the other day....while the Westie was clawing at the window, I let the Lab out the side door...hehehe, she almost caught the beggar.

Good luck with getting rid of yours, Hilde.

[hasshoes]

Awwww. . . don't hurt the cute little chipmunk!!!

I had several that were like my pseudo pets that visited my bird feeder. . . they even fell in love and had babies! 8)

Sorry to reminisce. . . have you considered borrowing a neigbor's cat? They can't run that fast and with an in shape cat they're a gonner. . . that's what happened to mine. . .

When I was younger our family cat killed a whole colony of them (we went from hordes to none!)

But I forgot about the poison. . . don't wanna kill the neighbors cat (well at least I hope

ps- have you considered just putting out seeds and nuts to occupy him? I did this when they were stealing my blueberries, and they spent the whole day running around burrying the nuts. It's probably cheaper than poison. . .

[Hilde]

Thanks guys! I love to hear your stories and advise!

Yes, he is cute, and I would hate to kill him. When I put the bait pellets out, I thought it was a rat or a vole, and I don't mind killing them. (I know, doesn't make sense and not fair to the rat and vole) When the bait disappeared, I was thinking the little guys days were numbered. Now I am faced with having poisonous bait all around the property, hidden by this chipmunk. I just hope that no kids will find it! I haven't seen anything myself, except for what I found on the back porch. I don't know anything about chipmunks and where they usually hide their weed!

There are no cats nearby, I can't think of anyone in the neighborhood who has cats. A shame, because I would love to borrow one just because I love cats. (No, I can't get one because DH is allergic and because we travel to Europe for a month or so every year, and there is no family nearby to take care of the cat.)

The bait actually did occupy him a lot, but now he is sick of bait and the little which is left has not been touched. The bigger pieces has not been touched.

Today was a big day: we ate our first Azoychka, and there were no bite marks in it. At least not until we bit into it! We were so eager to taste it that I forgot to weigh it, but got some pictures of it.

I will keep you updated, hopefully with pictures. I hope to get the trap late this week or early next week.

Hilde

[Hilde]

Update:

I got the trap today! It took only two days with FedEx, but the company was not too far away.

I used some old Walnuts as baits and put it out. Here are pictures.

However, I have not seen the chipmunk lately. Maybe it decided to eat the bait it had collected and died? I don't know. Some tomatoes has disappeared though, but the bait and the blueberries has not been touched lately.


I will update with pictures as soon as we catch something!

Hilde

[dice]

The bait goes at the far end of the trap,
opposite the spring-loaded opening.
The idea is that the varmint has to step
on the trigger plate to get to it. (If you
put it on the plate itself, a creature with
a delicate touch can stand back just behind
it and eat the bait off of it without triggering
the trap to close.)

[Hilde]

Update:
After two days, the chipmunk was caught in the trap!

I was beginning to think that it had eaten the bait and died, but suddenly this afternoon it was in the trap!

It was my understanding that you could let both doors be open and put the bait on the lever, or let one door be closed. I was afraid that if only one door was open, the little guy wouldn't dare to enter the trap, so I left both doors open.

I took the trap in the back of the minivan, fed him some walnuts on the trip, and let him loose in a little nature park not too far away, but far enough I think that he won't get back.

Here are pictures. The first shows the chipmunk in the trap where he was trapped, the second shows the chipmunk in the trap and eating walnuts.

Hilde

[dice]

You might leave the trap out, baited,
in case he has relatives in the neighborhood.

[Hilde]

You are right, dice, I should do that. Maybe there are a lot of them there, and I have only seen one at a time, thinking it was one?

Thanks!

Hilde