I've had it. The place is overrun with chipmunks and they have torn out all my little eggplant plants plus many others that I put in earlier this season. So far I have had to replace about 20 plants and this is with "garden variety" that you find at the nurseries, not the interesting stuff that one raises from seed.
I've decided to try fox urine as a deterrent. But I'm worried it will frighten my cat. Anybody have any thoughts on this?
al Netscape Mail account today at http://webmail.netscape.com/
In a message dated 6/13/02 10:52:22 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
njcher@NETSCAPE.NET writes:
<< I've decided to try fox urine as a deterrent. But I'm worried it will
frighten my cat. Anybody have any thoughts on this? >>
Why not use cat urine as a deterrent? Unless your cat doesn't use a litter
box and you don't have a handy supply of nice smelly urine-soaked litter.
Mary Ann
<< I've decided to try fox urine as a deterrent. But I'm worried it
will
frighten my cat. Anybody have any thoughts on this? >>
I'd hope so.
Your cat really should do a better job of
catching those rodents.
Barb in Southern Indiana Zone 5/6 dorsettb@kiva.net
Gardens are solar powered devices.
Maybe the cat is to well fed. Like Garfield. A slightly hungry cat
would be more likely to follow it's instincts and hunt rodents. I
would suggest ones own urine. It would not attract or scare the cat.
I have to re-plant my corn rather soon as a chipmunk got all the
seed. So far they do not seem to bother the plants. I will be
putting in such as egg plants so I guess it wouldn't hurt to protect
them as well.
I remember dispatching a chipmunk with a 12 gauge from 20 feet
many years ago. All I found to prove I hit it was a little blood. Talk
about overkill. Around here I would not take such drastic measures
but may get a live trap and move them a couple miles away.
Jim AllAn
200+ miles NW of ground zero
Inventor of the Dandelion Harvester
A press release can be seen at
http://community.webshots.com/user/jallan6977
I would think your cat would be scaring the chipmunks, are you sure it
wasn't slugs or something like that? The predator urine probably depends on
whether or not the cat recognizes it as something scary, or not. One thought
about the predator urine, I hope it is synthetic because I can't imagine how
they collect it from live animals in a humane way.
Barbara M. Martin
Current Mid-Atlantic Garden Report: "Container Gardening"
http://nationalgardening.com/regional/report13.html
Now at Cottage Garden: "Mulching: Mimicry or Murder"
http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/253/92387
Co-Owner, Gardens List http://www.kiva.net/~dorsettm/notes.html
all my little eggplant plants plus many others that I put in earlier this
season. So far I have had to replace about 20 plants and this is with
"garden variety" that you find at the nurseries, not the interesting stuff
that one raises from seed.
> I've decided to try fox urine as a deterrent. But I'm worried it will
frighten my cat. Anybody have any thoughts on this?
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Anesthetize the animal and use a catheter. That should be
humane. It might also help to clear the animals urinary tract of any
small things that might be adhered to the sidewalls. Of-
course
case of a cow you could use a garden hose.:>)
Jim AllAn
200+ miles NW of ground zero
Inventor of the Dandelion Harvester
A press release can be seen at
http://community.webshots.com/user/jallan6977
When I moved in here I got lion and tiger crap from the zoo and put
it in basins around the garden to protect the garden and my cats
(then 17 and 19) from bullying neighbour cats. My only fear was that
my cats would themselves be frightened.
Until the day my son brought me out to the garden, where the two cats
were snoozing happily, curled up together in a basin full of zoo-doo.
Isn't sitting by a tree holding a cup humane? Barb, Barb, Barb. Animals
are on mesh-floored cages, a pan below catches the drippings. Margaret L
My cat is plenty well fed, but is a natural hunter. some cats just are so
domesticated, or untrained by their mothers that they just aren't as good a
hunter. I wish mine would go out to the garden and get the voles.
susan
jallan6977 wrote:
They can spend a lot of time underground, so cats have to have loads of
patience. Terriers just dig them up and kill them. Margaret L
In a message dated 6/15/02 12:27:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
jorna@MOBILIXNET.DK writes:
<< Voles don't taste good. Cats do sometimes play with them and eventually
kill them, but they never eat them.
Carol >>
Chipmunks must be delicious, then, because all my outside cats used to leave
of them was the tail. I also got the back half of a squirrel as a gift on my
front steps one day.
Mary Ann
> course
> case of a cow you could use a garden hose.:>)
What sort of crazy predator cows do you have in your neck of the woods???
Regards,
Aidan
My husband was saying that the types of animals from which urine is often
obtained are those that are raised for their fur, and that the bladder is
emptied after the animal is killed.
Animals
> are on mesh-floored cages, a pan below catches the drippings. Margaret
L
Margaret, I just hate to think of them in a cage at all. Wire mesh or
whatever. They are wild animals. :(
Barbara M. Martin
Current Mid-Atlantic Garden Report: "Container Gardening"
http://nationalgardening.com/regional/report13.html
Now at Cottage Garden: "Mulching: Mimicry or Murder"
http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/253/92387
Co-Owner, Gardens List http://www.kiva.net/~dorsettm/notes.html
Voles don't taste good. Cats do sometimes play with them and eventually kill them, but they never eat them.
Carol
Somehow, that doesn't really make me feel any better, them either I wouldn't
think. :(
Barbara M. Martin
Current Mid-Atlantic Garden Report: "Container Gardening"
http://nationalgardening.com/regional/report13.html
Now at Cottage Garden: "Mulching: Mimicry or Murder"
http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/253/92387
Co-Owner, Gardens List http://www.kiva.net/~dorsettm/notes.html
Margaret
In a message dated 6/15/02 9:07:34 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
jorna@MOBILIXNET.DK writes:
<< >Chipmunks must be delicious, then, because all my outside cats used to
leave
> of them was the tail. I also got the back half of a squirrel as a gift on
my
> front steps one day.
> Mary Ann
You're lucky the cat doesn't come in while you're asleep and lay the back
half of a squirrel on your neck.
Carol >>
Well, outside cats stayed out. Once they came in, they became inside cats and
never went out again. That was the deal they made for full time food, shelter
and medical care.
I'm beginning to think it's getting too dangerous here for anyone to let
their cats out. I've heard coyotes yipping and howling here lately. The
latest was this afternoon when the fire siren went off, the yipping and
howling sounded like it was a couple of hundred feet away, no more.
Mary Ann
You're lucky the cat doesn't come in while you're asleep and lay the back half of a squirrel on your neck.
Carol
Voles don't taste good. Cats do sometimes play with them and eventually kill them, but they never eat them.
Carol
Sorry, got my new English words mixed up.
A vole is an ordinary field mouse and HUNGRY cats will eat them. Full cats will kill them, as they will kill shrews, which is what I meant, the mouse they refuse to eat.
Carol
Barb, maybe they have congenital defects that would prohibit their living
in the wild. That is the case with the raptors they use for live
demonstrations at the Birds of Prey Interpretive Center. How do they know
the peregrine falcon has bad eyesight? They tickle her foot and she pecks
two inches away from the tickler's hand. OTOH, my former editor (now
entertainment editor) lives on a hill overlooking the city, and he has a
fox den on his property. She had pups, and he watches them frisk and play
with a rather wary eye, aware that his cat is aging and may not always be
able to jump high enough to be out of reach of the foxes. Margaret L
My cat will eat parts of mice. I think it is probably the organs, but never really inspected closely!!
susan
Carol Jensen wrote:
They're even living on Cape Cod, and in the West, a friend saw one on her
sister's patio in Glendale, Calif. That's surrounded by a lot of
city. Margaret L
In a message dated 6/16/02 8:58:54 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
jorna@MOBILIXNET.DK writes:
<< Aren't you in New York State? Coyotes are out west!
Carol >>
Oh no my dear, maybe when you lived here, but they are very prevalent in NY
now.
Mary Ann
Don't be to sure they are not in ny state. Here there have been
many reports of their howling and sightings. Here being broome
county. Two hundred miles nw of ground zero.
Jim AllAn
200+ miles NW of ground zero
Inventor of the Dandelion Harvester
A press release can be seen at
http://community.webshots.com/user/jallan6977
Carol Jensen wrote:
> Sorry, got my new English words mixed up.
> A vole is an ordinary field mouse and HUNGRY cats will eat them.
No Carol! Sorry, but field mice and voles are NOT the same! They are two
different, unrelated animals - although about the same size.
A vole (Microtus spp) is described as "having a stocky body, short tail
and inconspicuous ears". They are native to both Old and New Worlds.
A fieldmouse is "any nocturnal mouse of the Genus Apodemus, inhabiting
woods fields and gardens of the Old World. They have yellowish-brown fur
and feed on fruit, vegetables, seeds etc.". They tend to be slim bodied
and have relatively long, rather pointed noses and prominent ears, which
clearly distinguish them from voles.
We have what is basically a children's book with pictures (drawings) of
Old World animals that shows both creatures, and they are unmistakeably
different in appearance.
Tony
--
Tony & Moira Ryan
Wainuiomata - at the Southern tip of North Island, NZ,
Lat 41??15'S, Long 174??58'E (Antipodes of Spain/Southern France)
jallan6977 wrote:
I don't know about chipmunks - I think they are exclusively North
American - but releasing wild creatures some distance from where you
have caught them is not usually a very successful idea.
Many animals will simply walk back to where they were before - so you
will see them again (or the damage they do) after a suitable interval.
The other thing is that it /may/ be more cruel than simply killing them,
since in a unfamiliar territory they may fall foul of the "locals" and
be given a very hard time, perhaps killed. This solves /your/ problem
admittedly, but seems unnecessarily tough on the animal.
Some people who catch possums in cage traps in NZ take them some miles
away and turn them loose again. But possums are strong walkers and will
reappear in their originals haunts in a surprisingly short time!
I have to admit that when we have possum trouble, we use a trap that
kills them and have no compunction about this, since they are the worst
and most damaging introduced pest in the country.
Tony
--
Tony & Moira Ryan
Wainuiomata - at the Southern tip of North Island, NZ,
Lat 41??15'S, Long 174??58'E (Antipodes of Spain/Southern France)
Aren't you in New York State? Coyotes are out west!
Carol
Funny, my English-Danish dictionary gave a vole as markmus (field mouse) =
Microtus agresti. But certainly, I believe you, and I think I have never =
seen a stocky mouse!!! I have not even seen a mole, nor have I ever had a=
ny. The only small animals in Denmark I really know are field mice, shrew=
s, and the occasional rat. Like 'em all!
Carol
Tony, do you have opposums in New Zealand? Are they introduced from the U=
S?
Carol
Not any more they're not. We have them in Virginia, and LOTS of them!! sheep
farmers are getting dogs and donkeys for help.
susan
Carol Jensen wrote:
Those city coyotes probably wouldn't survive if they were taken
out to the wild. After several generations they have forgotten how.
Their hunting is all done for garbage cans and city dumps where
they don't have to have those skills, so their parents never teach
them.
Jim AllAn
200+ miles NW of ground zero
Inventor of the Dandelion Harvester
A press release can be seen at
http://community.webshots.com/user/jallan6977
somebody better tell the coyotes then, cause we certainly have them in
maine! ;>} i used to see an occasional one on the side of the highway in
pennsylvania as well.
> Aren't you in New York State? Coyotes are out west!
> Carol
PEACE!!!
kevin
"We're fools whether we dance or not,
so we might as well dance!"
Japanese proverb
=======================================
Kevin Granahan
Software Support Specialist
University of Southern Maine
Could be. I moved to Denmark (or, first, Germany) in 1957. But I was in Oneonta from 1987 to 1991 to take care of my parents and later sell the house and furniture. Perhaps they aren't so far north? I know what they sound like from movies (I think).
Carol
NY
Coyotes are common through out the USA. One of the ways I can control
rabbits, although they are not too prevalent in this area at this time.
Coyotes and foxes are what I need now.
Kimm
You're probably right, Jim. They've re-introduced wolves to Idaho
(enraging ranchers), and instead of culling deer and elk herds, they're
sitting around waiting for a cow to calve or a ewe to lamb, taking the
infant before it even clears the birth canal. It's a lot easier for the
wolf, but infuriates the ranchers. Although it's against federal law to
shoot a wolf (unless you see it in the act of such depredation or in
self-defense), ranchers have shot several. I had to laugh though, they
lost track of one wolf (must have been radio collared) they released in
western Idaho. They discovered him the other day near Meeteetse, Wyoming,
roughly 400 miles distant. He's had several weeks to move, so that isn't
what amused me. It's the care the biologists take to put a wolf exactly
THERE, and then they just don't stay put. Margaret L
I don't know Tony, that sounds a lot like our opossum which is
also an arboreal nocturnal marsupial. Although ours does have a
scrawny bare rat like tail. They are not to bothered when we
approach one and will usually just keep doing what they were
doing. I have been told they can even be petted. That's one I don't
intend to test:>). Possible Rabbies you know and they do have
needle like teeth.
> Carol Jensen wrote:
> At 14:21 16-06-2002 +1200, you wrote:
> Tony, do you have opposums in New Zealand? Are they introduced from th=
e US?
Jim AllAn
200+ miles NW of ground zero
Inventor of the Dandelion Harvester
A press release can be seen at
http://community.webshots.com/user/jallan6977
Carol Jensen wrote:
No, we do not have the American opossum, only the Australian
brush-tailed possum - an unrelated animal. (Another case of misleading
common names!)
Tony
--
Tony & Moira Ryan
Wainuiomata - at the Southern tip of North Island, NZ,
Lat 41??15'S, Long 174??58'E (Antipodes of Spain/Southern France)
jallan6977 wrote:
> I don't know Tony, that sounds a lot like our opossum which is
> also an arboreal nocturnal marsupial. Although ours does have a
> scrawny bare rat like tail.
Yes, I had heard that yours was also a marsupial - the only marsupial in
No. America possibly? In Australia, as I expect you know, /all/ the
native animals are marsupials, there were NO placental mammals before
very early man introduced the dingo, the Australian wild dog, believed
to have been brought in from what is now Indonesia, but tens of
thousands of years ago).
However, perhaps it is "parallel evolution". AFAIK, there is NO
connection between the American opossum and the Australian possums - of
which they have many, many species, ranging in size from not much larger
than a mouse up to the Brush-Tailed. There may be some larger ones than
the Brush-Tailed, but I am not an expert on their fauna.
The Brush-Tailed Possum is protected (!) in Australia, since it is in
small enough numbers there not to be a major nuisance, although one
hears stories of irate homeowners surreptiously killing a possum, or
possum family, that had moved into their roof spaces for a home!
Apparently the animal has quite a hard time surviving in the sparse
Australian bush - and possibly the mainly eucalyptus flora is hard for
them to digest - but they have never been in the teeming millions that
we have here, chomping away on our much more lush forests!
> They are not to bothered when we
> approach one and will usually just keep doing what they were
> doing. I have been told they can even be petted.
Youngsters learning to hunt in NZ sometimes bring home a possum "joey"
(a baby that was still living in the mother's pouch) and raise it as a
pet. This is illegal, but it does happen. They are not especially good
pets, because they are naturally nocturnal and sleep all day, but also
because they do not "attach" to humans as so many placental mammals
will. They remain remote, emotionally, from their human host. However,
they can certainly be handled under those circumstances and will be
"friendly" enough. Wild ones I would definitely not touch! They are
strong and well armed with strong teeth and - especially - big strong
claws.
Tony
--
Tony & Moira Ryan
Wainuiomata - at the Southern tip of North Island, NZ,
Lat 41??15'S, Long 174??58'E (Antipodes of Spain/Southern France)
