Topic: Rabbits, pigeons and squirrels!

[IanDH]

If it is not one it is the other!

Had got used to netting to keep pigeons off.

Have spent ages trying to rabbit proof but the blighters still seem to find a way in.  Any ideas on what I can use to deter?

Last year the squirrels were a real pain as well.  Would not be too bad if they were not so wasteful, but one bite and throw away said apple/pear - so annoying.  Have seen them around again.  While I keep the fruit trees fairly small and could net is there any other deterrent that I could use against these rats with bushy tails?  Would be easier if some of the householders adjacent to the site did not encourage the things with nuts and fruit.

[ACE]

Rabbits, I was told that dog hair clippings would keep them away. Yeh Right. Well I had some from the hairy one that needed clipping so I spread them around my young runners. Much to my surprise it worked, they went and ate the beans on the next plot. When he replanted I gave him some fluff I had over, the rabbits then moved on to the next plot. Squirrels we only have the red ones here and they are not a problem so can't help you there but I would suggest old Rod Stewart CD's hung up and the flashing in the wind might help. You might get better results from George Michael  CD's he was a proper flasher.

[IanDH]

Thanks Ace, will try the dog hair.

[Obelixx]

We have to net our crops anyway to keep the chooks off the beds and we use butterfly netting on any bed growing brassicas and that works against pigeons too.

However, we inherited a row of tall fruit trees - unidentified cherries and Mirabelle plums - between the veg plot and the paddock plus some older ones from when it was a farm and which all have such bland flavour that I'm happy to let the birds have them.  Starlings can strip a cherry tea very efficiently.

Instead, I have planted smaller pear trees - Beurre Hardy and Poire William, an apricot, 2 peaches and a nectarine and I've finally found a supplier for some apples I'd like - Bramley etc - and those are being planted in the veg plot and will eventually be netted with a fruit cage against birds who pinch blossom as well as fruit.

[Beersmith]

Do pigeons have different behaviours in different areas?  Hereabouts they will strip small cherries and plums unless netted. Also will totally destroy unprotected gooseberries.  But will ignore apples and pears.  They sometimes peck young beetroot and chard but lettuce much less so, though the rabbits will demolish them unless covered.

With my carrots under insect mesh to avoid root fly and brassicas under butterfly mesh and a good sized fruit cage I'm sometimes astonished how much stuff needs covering these days. 

[tricia]

There is a wood pigeon that visits my Sunburst cherry tree every evening to feast on the topmost leaves. Poor tree has had to be netted to prevent further ravaging, and also to protect the fruit once it ripens. The leaves right across the top of the tree look as though they have been fretsawed back to the petiole leaving only the frame. Very odd!

Tricia 

[saddad]

I get that too Tricia... I assume he's more interested in the aphids and treat it as a bit of free pruning... but netting is essential!

[JanG]

I also routinely cover brassicas. My main bugbear with pigeons is peas, as climbing peas are more difficult to net and I grow a lot of them. So far fruit hasn’t bern touched except that occasionally, late in the season, the odd apple is pecked. I had assumed it was smaller birds but it could be pigeons perhaps.

Rabbits have been unco-operative over the years but a fairly basic fence of chicken wire has now, so far, kept them at bay.

[saddad]

The pigeons have taken the tops out of my climbing peas this week, having got to 6', considering getting some 8' posts for next year!

[terrier]

Never get bothered by rabbits in veg patch, pigeons don't do that much damage and the one young Squirrel we have only pinches the bird food. The main problem is MOLES! I've got molehills all over my plot. Anything newly planted just gets pushed out of the ground. It seems much worse this year, I've always had a few molehills appear but now there seems to be an army of the brutes fully intent on plant carnage.

[saddad]

Thankfully we are mole, badger, deer and rabbit free here, Pigeons and tree rats are an issue...  but we get off lightly!

[George the Pigman]

Wood Pigeons have been a menace on our site for decades. We have to net all the brassicas . They don't seem to bother about any other variety of plants though. Fortunately the crow/rook population has increased locally and that seems to have put the wood pigeons off nesting . Apparently the Corvids take pigeon eggs. Back home the wood pigeons delight in stripping the leaves off the lilac trees in the garden.
Being suburban Birmingham we don't get rabbits but we have been plagued with urban badgers of the last few years. These rougher, tougher and wilier relatives of the rural badgers delight in eating all our sweetcorn bashing it down like a tank.
Once had a mole on site that came in in the middle of someone's first early potatoes!
Of course we have the usual selection of rats mice, cats and urban foxes.
Our current resident fox ate one of our allotmenteer's chocolate bar he was going to have for a snack with a flask of tea. He had left if with his flask on a table. Of course being where we are the foxes will only touch Cadbury's!!!

[Plot22]

We net all brassicas because of the wood pigeons. Last year we had 2 new foes first the badgers from a set half a mile away destroyed every bodies  sweet corn and the sparrows and robins nipped the buds of all but one plots peas. This year plan B for the peas. I have supported two rows of adjacent peas with barrier netting as normal and then encased the whole lot with bird proof netting keeping it 8" away from the barrier netting so the sparrow and his robin buddy cannot reach through to get at the peas. So far so good but it is a bit of a problem to weed as I have to get inside the netting via a gap I have left between the 2 rows of peas.

[Vinlander]

Netting so the sparrow and his robin buddy cannot reach through to get at the peas..

No harm in that - if only because you can't stop a sparrow without stopping robins.

But I must say that robins are carnivores 90% plus, and it would be a huge mistake to think they are pests - if they want to get in it's to eat the maggots etc. - it may look like the pea has been targeted but you still couldn't have a better friend.

NB. The American robin is a totally different species - I've no idea what it eats.

Cheers.

[planetearth]

Get a trap to catch the squirrels.  Put some peanut butter in the trap (possibly on a pear) and you will very soon have less squirrels.