Trouble with fruit bats

[Mvule101]

My seed grown Annona reticulata is fruiting for the third year and had 7 fruit. One got stollen by a neighbour kid. Now the topmost one was eaten over night by a fruit bat.

How can I stop it eating all the rest?? Any ideas appreciated.

[fruitlovers]

You could use netting or shade cloth over the tree.

[Mike T]

I am also besieged by flying foxes every night. You just have to pick fruit green or net the trees. Cockatoos and rainbow lorikeets are the day shift for me and the winged vultures tax me heavily.

[Mvule101]

Thank you for your suggestions. Maybe I could ut nets over individual fruit, since there are not so many.

[fruitlovers]

Thank you for your suggestions. Maybe I could ut nets over individual fruit, since there are not so many.

If you're doing individual fruits then it's better to use small plastic boxes. The bats can easily push and chew through a net close to the fruit.

[dwfl]

Does anything eat those bats? Would some cats do the job?

[fruitlovers]

Does anything eat those bats? Would some cats do the job?

Check out the size of flying foxes. They are not much smaller than a cat.

[Mike T]

I can have 10 or a dozen in the yard at any one time and the common spectacled flying foxes have a wing span that looks over a metre and so do the black flying foxes but little reds maybe not much more than 2 feet across. My cat is scared of them and each one can eat a pound of fruit in a sitting.
They chew individual bags and suck juice through the mesh. Pythons do eat them.

[Mike T]

A few flying foxes in my sapodillas right now but they are camera shy.

[Kada]

Green tree pythons, carpet pythons and bredls pythons are all especially gorgeous!  Might be worth a breeding program...perhaps a government grant even    the arboreal types are especially fond of flying dinner.

[Mike T]

One of those is 500km north, one is 1500km south west and carpets visit my yard. I get mostly amethyst pythons to 5.5 eating my ducks and geese. Sometimes water pythons and spotted pythons drop by. With goannas, fig parrots, lorikeets, cockatoos and insect pest as well as flying foxes and tube nosed bats Im lucky to get any fruit.

[Kada]

Well at least you still have a good amount  

Are you saying the goannas are eating fruit?  When i used to raise various varanus (mostly african and indonesian) they were pretty strict carnivors.  But in Borneo have seen the big guys chomping down fruit discards (watermelon and such) which i wasnt expecting.

Can i ask which species are eating the fruit?  Quite interested

[Mvule101]

One of those is 500km north, one is 1500km south west and carpets visit my yard. I get mostly amethyst pythons to 5.5 eating my ducks and geese. Sometimes water pythons and spotted pythons drop by. With goannas, fig parrots, lorikeets, cockatoos and insect pest as well as flying foxes and tube nosed bats Im lucky to get any fruit.

Wow you have a positive managerie in your yard!

[Mike T]

The lace monitors come and eat the eggs from the ducks and sometimes attack mother ducks sitting on eggs.