First, putting the trees with leaves was a huge mistake as you now know. You haven't stated what you're trying to protect- if it's trees already planted here are a few options.

You can protect the base of the trees in many ways and hardware cloth is not the cheapest or easiest. Aluminum foil can be used as a wrap or you can buy plastic wraps to protect against what I assume are actually meadow voles (just because that's what our "mice" are).

The advantage of har clth is that it breathes and doesn't hold moisture against the trunk. It's best to remove materials that don't breathe during the growing season although I usually don't get around to it and seldom suffer for it.

In my nursery I actually trap out mice by placing baited traps underneath large plastic trays and moving them throughout my property. I just set up the traps yesterday and will be moving them around for the next month. Trapping this way allows me to monitor what kind of voles are on the property and how many.

I will also use the white plastic wraps but can't count on them because in addition to meadow voles I have pine voles which are subteranian and behave like your western gophers (although they're not as pervasive, thank goodness).

For customers I sometimes use inexpensive poison bait stations that can be purchased from Gemplers.

Trapping has also been pretty easy for me.

I've started using the Eaton type live traps. I like them for a couple of reasons. They catch more than one vole/mouse at a time, and I can bait w/ dried fruit which is my preferred choice. I like the traps w/ the clear top for easy checking (see link below). The disadvantage is that you have to destroy the rodents yourself. Throwing the trap in a bucket of water is about the only way.

In the summer, ants will eat a little bit of the dried fruit.

Here is a link that might be useful: Eaton traps

try a couple of outdoor cats. they are wonderfully effective as long as you don't overfeed them and they also keep the mice away from your home and any items you might have in storage like mowers, motorcycles, boats, or whatever.

I'm not really a cat persom but my kids like them and they really are a useful addition to a hobby farm or orchard.

I grow several fig trees and I wrap them up in winter. A few years ago I lost most of my fig trees to the mice, they love living inside the bundled up fig tree. I have since used Moth balls around the trees prior to wrapping them and it did get help drive the mice away.

Bass

Bon, you can't be sure that the mothballs did the trick or if other factors were in play. Voles have their up and down years population and hunger-wise. Do you have any more complete research to validate this method? Genuinely curious.

My experience with cats is that they are much better at killing off the local bird population and not much good at removing mice from the area.

The majority of mice will be lurking in areas where cats can't access them.

oregon,
Thats been my experience too....plus they catch squirrels Ive 12 around my place that people keep dropping off on me thinking i will feed them

My cats kill mice chipmunks and birds in about equal amounts. Since we have a lot more birds they are overall killing a much smaller percentage of birds. I wish my cats would go after squirrels but the squirrels are too big to catch. Fortunately our new puppy dog loves to chase and he is part miniature pincher, a ratting dog, genetically engineered to kill rats and their furred cousins.

Scott

Scott,
How many cats do you have, and do you keep them outside all the time?

Hillbilly,
With 12 cats, do you have any bird problems at all? Do you have to net anything?

OregonWoods,
How many cats do you have, and do they completely take care of your bird problem?

I'm trying to determine how many cats it takes to reduce bird damage to an acceptable level (say 5%) without netting (if it's even possible).

This summer I obtained 3 barn cats. Don't know if that's enough.

Olpea, I would think that the size of your fruit plot would have a lot to do with how many cats it takes to patrol it. How big / what's planted. I'm guessing here, but cats are probably only effective with low growing fruit like blueberries and raspberries. They would lose the element of suprise in a tree.

olpea, I do not have any cats. If I had a cat, it would be indoors only, in order for it to be safe.

The cats dumped off here "to live in the country" by azzhole irresponsible pet owners only live 2-3 days before the coyotes kill them, or they starve or freeze to death, or get hit by cars.

We did have one stray cat that lived in the area for a couple of years. He wiped out 100% of the quail population.

All the time he was wiping out the quail, the tweeties still ate my fruit crop and the mice still crawled around in the walls of my garage and the rabbits still ran all over the place. Plus I had the odor of cat pee around my house, because he sprayed on everything he got close to.

I admired him for his wiliness, but I haven't seen him since this summer, so I suspect the coyotes finally caught him out in the open. I'm hoping that now that he is gone, the quail will move back into the area.

Unless your cats want to live up in your fruit trees all day long, they aren't going to have much effect on fruit predation. Even if your cat kills every bird on your property, the birds will migrate in to eat your fruit when it is ripe. But in the meantime, with no birds, you will have severely increased insect infestations.

By the way, I like cats. I just don't like people who abandon domestic animals and I have no respect for people who allow their pets to roam at will and disturb the neighbors.

We've thought about getting a cat and i'd want it to be a good mouser. With birds around here its mainly robins and sparrows. I doubt you could kill enough of those to make a dent.

I don't want to get in a great cat debate but I have become an outside cat person after seeing how much more happy my two cats are being outside. Dogs can put up with being inside most of the time, but it makes many cats neurotic.

Olpea, the problem with cats as protection is it depends on their mood. They vary on how much they protect a certain crop. They do not appreciably reduce my bird population, what they do is serve as "live scares" which keep the birds away. So, if they are not patrolling that area for a long enough period the birds will come back. That said, the cats are very good at noticing what the birds are interested in and will park below their feeding spot for a long time. I didn't net my blueberries last summer because the cats protected them well enough. My currants and gooses were also doing fine most of the summer, but all of the late gooses got eaten by the birds. Maybe more cats would help solve that, usually its only one I see patrolling a given spot, rarely both. I have about an acre with two cats. For the mice and chipmunks (and rabbits) they really do keep the population down since there are many fewer and they are far easier to catch. The baby rabbits get caught and the bigger ones seem to decide there are safer places to hang out, never staying long.

Scott

I may be the only person on here that likes rabbits I stack brush in the woods for them to have a place to hide as they draw in the coyote and bobcats which keep the coon and possum pop down.

olpea,
The cats don't keep the birds out of the trees as my biggest bird problem is crows, they get a few but I still have to net any soft fruit I want to eat. what they really help with is coons and possums not that they kill them but they do raise a ruckus as they do fight with them so I know when they are around so I can kill them.

My dogs do a great job at killing mice and voles and whatever else is around that size. I've got a westie and a dachshund and they're both breed for hunting small game. They don't kill birds, at least, not often. The rabbits can both outrun and outsmart them unfortunately, although my dachshund got a nest of babies the mother was stupid enough to have in the raspberry patch.

I grew up w/ barn cats. My experience is they survive very well if they have a safe place to sleep, and are fed and watered. I built a cat house for them that's inside a chain link fence. It's got an opening only big enough for a small animal to get in.

I'm also not too worried about them roaming the neighborhood. There are all kinds of dogs (and a few cats) that already roam the neighborhood. Nobody gets too excited. It's the way we do things around here.

I've had a heck of a problem w/ bird depredation. Not only berry crops, but significant damage to tree fruit as well. I even have to net my small sweet corn planting. When the seedlings start to come up, the birds will pull up the seedlings to eat the kernels. If there is any way to get under the net, they will find it. Every year it gets a little worse.

Insect control through birds is a joke here. Robins don't eat moths or PC, and when Robins aren't eating fruit, they eat beneficial earthworms. Other birds seem to show up here in the morning to eat fruit, and are then gone for the day. My thought is birds have figured out there are no predators whatever in my orchard, which makes it especially attractive to them. I'd like to make things less attractive. Based on comments here, it seems cats do that for berries, but not for tree fruit.

It's a bit early to tell, but it seems I'm trapping less voles (and the cats have caught 3 mice/voles that I've seen). I've also found a dead bird under the deck, but I don't know if that was due to the cats.

Thanks to all for the comments.

Although I do have a Vole population, their damage is minimal and easier to control. Rats have been our scourge. The population grew to where they were cleaning every fruit from our family orchard of twenty trees. This year I vowed to get them under control. I spent about $50 on rat bait. They were eating up to a pound a day! It was a pleasure to at least harvest my own apples. The rats got the earlier fruit before I got the rats. Al

Rats don't last long if they come near my place , if the cats don't get them then my rat terriers will.

Olpea, I agree with you on the bird issues but with one exception--bluebirds. Since I put a couple bluebird houses in the orchard, I've seen some reduction with a few insect problems. Flycatchers also hang out there and are fun to watch especially while I mow.

Brook

I've got both bluebirds and phoebes in my area. The phoebes will eat some berries but usually only until there is enough bugs. Both species like to perch on the top of the fence posts (10ft tall) of my deer fence then swoop in for bugs in the fruit plot. Last August and early September,I took the time to watch them through binoculars at a relatively close distance.

All of the catches that I could see were always bees. Both bluebirds and phoebes love bees. Fortunately, I had a lot of bees and bluebirds would move on to other places after a while. The phoebes relentlessly worked the bees in the fruit plot. I enjoy the birds and thankfully, I had enough bees to go around.

These birds are beautiful and fun to watch but I think in many areas, they eat WAY more beneficial bugs than harmful ones. If you don't think so, grab some good binoculars and a lawn chair and watch them up close. You will be suprised at how different reality is from what the bird lovers protray as their diet.

atheanainwi, add a sight hound to your dog mix and they will get all the rabbits.

Whippets make great pets and are great hunters. Retired racing greyhounds are inexpensive and can catch rabbits, but they tend to be lazy and can't get into small spaces.

A neighbor has 2 farm Border Collies and no problem with fruit loss. The dogs work non-stop and chase off everything, even jumping up at the trees and frightening the birds off. They never give up on chasing the birds so the birds can't wait and sneak back later because the dogs are always waiting for them.

I do observe what my birds are eating, and they seem to consume mostly moths. As such, I have seen some reduction in codling moth damage. However, honestly, that may also be attributed to a more efficient spray regimen.

Brook

I don't have a mouse or rat problem but I do have a vole problem which some years are so bad it makes you want to give up on growing anything outdoors. I know it sounds odd but I now live in a city that outlaws free range cats (as do most of the neighboring cities) so all my cat experience is from when I lived somewhere else. My experience has been that some cats are good hunters and some are not. I've had cats that were only interested in hunting birds and left everything on the ground alone and I've cats that only wanted to kill lizards and snakes and ignored birds and I've had cats that were great hunters but only for a portion of their long lives, when they get old they tend to sleep most of the day (my current housecat is 21 years old and shows no sign of dying anytime soon).

Two things that I do that help with voles is I encourage snakes to live in my yard by keeping brush piles and rock piles near the fruit trees and bushes and around the edge of the garden. That only helps in the summer when snakes are active. I also build bucket traps by sinking a 5 gallon bucket down into the ground so that the top rim is level with the ground. I put an inch or so of soil in the bottom and bait it with fruit bits and peanut butter crackers or fig newtons. I put an old board or a large flat rock over the top so that it is completely covered. Voles and all sorts of small mammals fall into the trap and can't climb out. Snakes can climb in and eat the voles and then climb out. Least shrews also fall in and will eat anything that falls in also including voles which are bigger than the shrew. The only problem is the shrews die in a few hours if they don't have food so you either have to check the traps often or leave a lot of bait in them or accept that your trap is also going to kill a primary killer of voles.