I have no love, love, love for squirrels! (That's three things isn't it?)— None. Vienas. Nessunokeine. Nada.
Over the years squirrels have eaten the buds off my orchids before they even get to open and sometimes even have eaten the orchid plants –if they didn't happen to dig into the medium, dislodging the orchid right out of its pot.
Now they have started devastating the fruit on my trees which had just this year started to bear after being in the ground now for closing on three years. Every one of the two dozen Mexicola Grande fruits disappeared this summer before they began to ripen, as likewise vanished the three fruits hanging for the first time this spring on my Ice Cream mango tree.
So I shall have to deal with this problem by falling back on my no-fail remedy: A half cup of toasted wheat germ (with two to three drops of anise oil added in, which the rodents absolutely love the flavor of) mixed thoroughly with one half cup of concrete powder. That mixture is set out in a bowl where the squirrels can get to it but not pets or kids can. A bowl of water is set nearby since the squirrels are thirsty after eating the mixture. (BTW this mixture also works on rats.)
This mixture never fails because it creates an intractable B.M. that the squirrels never develop an immunity to as they often do with Decon, etc. Plus this mixture cannot cause a secondhand poisoning of any dogs or cats that might catch an affected squirrel and eat it. (Usually though a hawk or an owl will be what gets the affected squirrel.)
But unfortunately squirrels are territorial and after dispatching all the squirrels in my yard for one season, more move in the next season from adjacent areas, nature abhorring a vacuum as she does.
Anyway, I do know that I never will manage to wipe out all of them because I will need to be re-supplying these destructive fluffy rats with more mixture next year when the new individuals move into my yard. My feeling is that if I've put in the effort to grow and care for the fruit I intend to eat so I can avoid having to buy it at the grocery store where I wind up with beautiful-but-mostly-flavorless, expensive fruit then I don't want what I've grown to fall victim to the destructiveness of squirrels.
OK — HTH
Paul M.
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