Better critter repellents

[897tgigvib]

I really really hate having to use mousetraps to kill voles or mice, or if it happens, gophers.

What are some TRULY EFFECTIVE ways to repel critters like these...fencings, screenings, smells...

Any real good ideas???

 

[Ridgerunner]

Snakes, preferable non-venomous!

I really don't have a good method. I do encourage non-venomous snakes to hang around as long as they are not eating eggs or baby chicks. I do have some limits. I keep a trapping program going around the chicken coop where the chickens can't get to it. Thay does not eliminate them or repel them, just helps keep the numbers under some control. Snakes won't eliminate them either, just help reduce the numbers.

I've heard of putting moth balls in tunnels or burying them a few inches deep for moles and voles, but I don't have a clue how you'd space them in the ground if you just bury them. If you put them in the tunnels they will just dig a different tunnel. That may keep them away from certain areas. I tried that last year when voles were chewing on my sweet potatoes but I don't know how much it helped. The sweet potatoes were damaged when I noticed the problem. I don't know how much they were damaged before or after I put out those moth balls. And I did not want to put those moth balls real close to the sweet potatoes I would later eat.

 

[897tgigvib]

I do get a few snakes in my garden and i welcome them. Garter and Gopher snakes. We also have a brown snake folks call a rat snake, non venomous also. So far my garden has not had rattlesnakes but they are around here, the timber kind.

I also have lizards. Blue tipped racers, blue bellies, and alligator lizards, and also a more plain brown one im sure is related to the blue bellies.

I also have tree frogs, some kind of other small pond frog that has different color variations, and regular toads im sure there is a name for.

We also have my totem animal, the salamander, a brown smallish one with pale orange feet and small marks.

Maybe if I could keep a falcon in my garden? I really don't want to put my abyssinian clevland out there. i have him as a spoiled, completely and lovingly, inside cat now even though i got him as a trained gopher gitter. besides, he tears the ground and plants up.

Falcon...hmmmmmmmm

There is a falcon person in willits who rehabilitates injured birds of prey. he keeps those that are too injured to survive the wild. Maybe if i got a one legged one, or one that can't fly.

My garden is fully enclosed, and some folks say it looks like an aviary! It might need a double gate entrance...hmmm

 

[digitS']

You understand, don't you Marshall, that any "friendly" carnivore that we keep will need someone to provide it meat during all those days when it can't catch prey?

Yes, the prey in that situation will only exist so that its body can be fed to something that eats meat. I am reminded that "pet snakes" eat caged mice.

I say, trap 'em. Killed as mercifully as possible and with reluctance because they are invading our space. Twelve mice were living on the floor of my chicken coop!!! After they fell silent, I moved the traps into the garage and caught 2 more. What they were finding to eat in there, other than the cheese in the traps, I don't know!

I think the mice decided to live under the stack of garden poles I pile behind the chicken house every winter. Near the garage . . . and no neighbor's cat thru the fall, maybe, to slow 'em down a little!

I've related the story of trying to grow potatoes under mulch and having the voles chew on every-single-spud! Yes, I've put ordinary, Victor mousetraps in the garden. They've been of some help around tomatoes when the voles have decided this was a good place to dig a hole and set up housekeeping. I've also flooded the holes . . . and, I've had what were apparently coyotes show up and dig (!) the voles out!!!

Birds I have kept out of plantings with toy cats. Moved around frequently, they make the birds nervous. Mice, I don't think would be so easily fooled.

Steve

 

[ducks4you]

Before I moved into my place ~ 12 years ago there was a garter snake living under the front steps. I have always kept cats since then, and the snake left a long time ago. I have no problem with mice inside of my house, and I know that they are eating voles bc I find dead caracasses of the extra kills, all of the time. The dogs find/kill rabbits, and share baby bunny nests with the cats, after they are full. NO rabbit problems with my garden, except when one chewed on a young GD apple tree that I bought last year, but I wrapped it with an old horse wrap and baling twine, and haven't seen any damage since.
There is no guarantee that cats will kill all of the vermin, and you DO have to feed them cat food, but their instincts push them to do so. I only get them rabies shots, and I keep male cats, only. (Yeah, "Favorite" is a female, but she was spayed 10 years ago.) You can also spend time with them and gentle them.

 

[897tgigvib]

I guess I'll be getting a bunch more regular mouse traps

 

[thistlebloom]

Macabee traps are the best gopher traps.

 

[897tgigvib]

I may get some of those too

 

[catjac1975]

My cats do pretty good job.