Critters and traps--peanut butter

[power napper]

Having a problem with coons, rabbits, ground hogs and deer. The garden is surrounded by an electric fence but still the critters eat away. Set one of those big humane animal traps and was told that peanut butter is a good bait to catch coons. Last night the peanut butter caught me a rabbit, never knew that a rabbit ate peanut butter.

[Sundance]

The only way I keep animals out of the garden is woven wire fence along with 3 free roaming dogs. Nothing like a Springer Spaniel to keep bunnies on the run.

[honeyman46408]

Foxes and Coyotes have taken care of the rabbits here but the ground hogs is another story. I also have an electric fence for the deer and I use live traps in the bee yard and other places for coons, the best bait is MARSHMELLOWS the coons just love them or Twnkies or any thing sweet.

Tree rats are a porblem here too they will dig up Tulip or any other bulb plant so I trap them too (sunflower seeds) in a live trap.

In the last 2 years I have goten rid of close to 200 tree rats and 30 or so (I have lost count) coons and 3 or 4 possums.

So I say DEATH to the varmets (hope nobody from peta is reading)

[iddee]

Are you kidding? If it weren't for PETA, you would still have rabbits, quail, and other desirables.PETA's fanatic interference has all but eliminated them, and brought the undesirables, like foxes, coyotes, hawks and other meat eaters to the level of untouchable gods.
So I say DEATH to PETA. "THE Varmits"

[chemistbert]

I use a friut paste in my traps. It avoids "collateral damage" read neighbors kitties. Not that I really give a darn but when they ask my wife she barks at me about it...

[iddee]

Chemistbert
Go down 8 or 9 posts and read HEY SUNDANCE thread. It tells you about dealing with the neighbor's kitties.

[MichaelW]

Actually ecology shows that Foxes, coyotes, hawks, (predators) help control populations of rabbits, groundhogs, field mice, etc. The comback of predator species should help keep the rabbits and such to controllable levels. We will see what happens. The overrun of such species now should have to do with the loss of predator species in the past. DDT, overtrapping, etc.

Don't get me wrong, I HATE PETA TOO. They put all the animals up as gods, cows too. Do they really think cows, pigs, sheep, etc. would continue to exists if everyone stopped eating them? They also can't except proven ecology. Like deer hunting to keep deer from overpopulating. When deer overpopulate disease begins spreading rapidly and food for them becomes scarce. In this case we are the "predator species"

To controll varmits in our garden, we have 3 big dogs in a fence beside it. This so far has been enough to keep the buggers out. There was a huge groundhog living in the garden area when we move here. Hives are raised or entrances protected with harware cloth to protect from skunks.

[BubbaBob]

I like PETA...matter of fact, I'm the local chapter president of People Eating Tasty Animals...that's what PETA is ain't it?

BubbaBob

[Phoenix]

As for rabbits or deer which are herbivores, all you need to do is use a protein conconction to deterr them. I have used this with great success in the past few years...

Crack two eggs in a blender, add a cup of water and blend thoroughly. Add the blended mixture to a gallon jug and fill the remainder with more water. Shake well to dilute the mixture. Add this to a trigger sprayer or bug sprayer and mist your plants that you want to be protected.

This concoction will deterr any herbivores that wish to feed on your plants, as they do not like the protein.

You should re-administer the application after each rainfall and after new growth.

[wayacoyote]

Want to get rid of rabbits?
do like so many other people do, clean out all the fence rows, mow everything in sight, replace all the natural vegitation with cotton or corn, then fuss that the hawks and foxes are the culprits.

Waya
If we distroy it, they won't come.

[TX Ashurst]

My wife hates this tale, but I'm willing to share it with friends.

We had rabbits eating my wife's flowers a while back and on a friend's advise I bought a bottle of fox urine. This is how you "talk" to animals. I put a few drops of it on a cotton ball inside a film canister with a few holes drilled around the upper sides, and replaced the tops. The scent of the fox urine keeps rabbits away because they recognize it as the marker of a predator's territory. The film container protects it so it doesn't wash away so quickly, but it was a hassle to renew it. It seemed to work, but that fox urine got pretty strong and I banished it from my garage.

Then it occurred to me that fox urine is PREDATOR urine. I'm a predator, too. Mine is fresher, cheaper, and MUCH easier to find. (This is the part my wife objects to.) Mine worked just as good as the fox's, too.

Meanwhile, we started having a small problem with a neighbor who let his dogs outside to deficate - on my lawn it seemed. Dogs are also sensitive to odors for marking territory. So I put some urine in a spray bottle (well marked!) and sprayed it in the grass along my property line, being very careful of which way the wind was blowing.
Presto!
The neighbor's dogs stayed on their side of the property line. Now, that's real, effective communication.
I renewed the spray treatment 3 or 4 times a week (because of the sprinkler system) through the rest of the summer (by then I just wasn't telling my wife what I was doing so we were both happy [img]tongue.gif[/img] ) and the dogs seldom come onto my property even now, even though I stopped the treatments a couple of years ago.

I found the spray bottle so much easier to use than the film containers that I threw the film containers away. They were pretty nasty, anyway.
Oh, a side benefit is that the lawn benefits from the spray because it is basically fertilizer.

I'm sure this is not a pleasant method for the more sensitive, and I apologize if it has offended anyone. But it might be worth a try. I don't think it would work with skunks, bears, or maybe opposums, but other than that it ought to.

[Sundance]

I just picked up Liquid Fence. A friend who was having trouble with deer and fruit trees raved about it.

I have a bunch of apple trees and hope it works 1/2 as good as I was told!

http://www.liquidfence.com/

[searcher]

Nice story Tx, I guess it brings home the meaning to my dad's old saying when I was a kid needing a place to wiz . Whip it out and go son - whip it out and go!

Most gal's swear we can't hit the broad side of a toilet with an aim point laser sight attached, so I'm just trying to draw a picture of the size funnel your holding to fill that spray bottle.

[BubbaBob]

I'm trying to draw a picture of having a laser sight attached...

BubbaBob