Between weather, animals, insects, fungus, bacteria, and even viruses, it sometimes seems like all out war trying to raise fruit. There is an old adage about nature getting a third (or is it two thirds) of your crop, but when there is nothing left, its them or you. Get Victor rat traps (same company as Hav-a-Hart) but make sure that you place them where neighborhood pets cannot get injured or killed. I twist-tie peanut half-shells to the trigger, fill the shell halves with peanut butter and embed an assortment of raisins, dried cranberries, dates, and peanuts into the peanut butter. I set three of them in my blueberry cages where smaller animals were tunneling in or squeezing through the chicken wire, and killed chipmunks, mice, and moles as fast as I could reset the traps, which was three times a day. I had one go off as I was walking back into the house from resetting them. After three days, the traps remained empty for weeks. Do not buy Tomcat brand traps. They have a different trigger that is so tight, I would often find the peanut shells licked clean, still twist-tied to the trigger, and the trap still set like I had been visited by Speedy Gonzales How useless is that? Without the fencing to protect pets, I set them on top of trellis posts and cross arms, where cats and dogs cannot reach them. I get an occasional cat bird or cow bird up there, taking a break from stealing me blind of raspberries and blackberries, but mostly chipmunks and squirrels. If your state and local regulations and neighborhood configuration allow, a Gamo Whisper pellet rifle will take care of squirrels. They come in .177 and .22 caliber and have the muzzle velocity of a .22 rimfire cartridge rifle. The Whisper model has a silencer that takes away a little of the noise, but with the right pellets breaking the sound barrier, (up to 1,200 feet per second) you still get a "crack" as the pellet travels down-range. With the scope that comes with it dialed in (not an easy feat), I can repeatedly hit one of those green metal garden fence posts at fifty yards, making squirrels an easy target if they are standing still. I'm not a hunter or a cruel person by nature, but there is something to be said for the satisfaction of waking up in the morning to find squirrels jumping around your peach trees like they were on a jungle gym, blowing one out of a tree at 50 yards and watching the rest scatter. A more humane approach is to string up old CDs with fishing line or string so that they spin in the breeze. The flashing movement seems to help a little. I bought "Bird Scare Tape" that was supposed to do the same thing and ironically found that the sparrows had stolen it to build their nests in the eaves of my house.

I have squirrel problems too. One thing that has been pretty good for me are white fabric hairnets, also called bouffant caps - the kind they use in clean rooms. I'll use a larger round pot and plant several seeds about 1" apart or whatever in it. I also top off with chicken grit if I think the seedling can compete with it. Then I stick a chop stick in the middle, put the hairnet over it (they are reusable BTW and last from year to year). Then I put a rubber band around that. It doesn't heat up like plastic, it lets the rain in and keeps the seedlings from drying out, keeps them from being crushed by water, keeps them from scorching in full sun. You can also water through them. Open it up once and a while for circulation if it's particularly damp out for a few weeks. The hairnets will stay on without the rubberbands but animals might take them to make their nests. Here is a link for this type of cap, though I am not sure what brand I have. Here is a link that might be useful: Bouffant Caps

Josie_2, "I have bought 2 Havahart traps (1 for regular squirrels and 1 for red squirrels) and I still can't trap the little devils. They help themselves to the bait and the traps spring shut without them inside." Unless there is something mechanically wrong with your traps, it is virtually impossible for a squirrel to eat the bait and not get trapped inside. In over a hundred catches I have had only two cases in which the animal got the bait and got away. The first time was when I had placed the trap on a slope and the squirrel bounced around enough inside the trap to cause it to roll down the hill. A design flaw of Havahart traps is that the door latch mechanism releases if the trap is rolled upside down. From that experience I learned to place my traps on reasonably level spots. More expensive live-catch traps don't have that flaw, but they do cost more and they aren't locally available. I got my traps locally. A couple of months ago I had a second escape, this time from a level placement. By doing a little "Crime Scene Investigation" I was able to piece together a probable explanation. The key piece of evidence was a hole in the ground near the empty trap. Apparently I caught a partly grown gray squirrel which was nearly too big for the trap (a smallish double-door chipmunk/ground squirrel/red squirrel trap) and the animal dug with it claws through the openings in the bottom of trap into the ground and got hold of a small tree root and used that as leverage to tip the trap over. The depth of the gouge in the ground and the marks on the little tree root indicated considerable strength. The next day what appeared to be the same squirrel was chattering noisily at me from a nearby tall tree. It's like he was bragging about his escape from my little trap. He kept up the tirade. So I shot him out of the tree with my 22-caliber airgun. He was a little bit too confident. Josie, is it possible that mice or voles are stealing the bait from your Havahart traps? They are small enough to squeeze between the wires of most Havahart traps, and they like all kinds of bait. And, if an animal just brushes up against the external trigger mechanism, it can be enough to set off the trap even though the animal is not in the trap at the time. Falling twigs, acorns, and sometimes even leaves are enough to set off my small trap, which seems to have a hair trigger. You might want to continue to experiment with your Havahart traps. Normally they are not easily defeated by squirrels. Read the instruction sheets to make sure you are setting the traps properly. Just out of curiosity, what are you using for bait? MM

Hi there! Yes baby squirrels stay very near the nest for quite some time, you need to look at behavior rather than size to see that the squirrel is a baby, they play like kittens, race around and jump on each other etc. The only time I have ever seen TINY baby squirrels is when whe had a nest of them loose the Mom this last spring. A little one made his way out of the tree and came walking up to us, we picked him up and called a rehabber, she told us to watch for more and sure enough I found another the next day, I could find no sign of a nest anywhere, but 2 day later I heard one crying (they will cry loudly if in perril)and will seek human help. I spotted the baby still in the tree cavity,she was too weak to come down the tree so I went up and got her. I held and fed all 3 of these little ones till I could get them to the rehabber (I had good instructions) unfortunatly we found a 4th one had already died in the nest. SO you don't WANT to see a baby squirrel because that most likely means something has happened to the Mother. If you DO see one call a rehabber IMEDIATLEY! I have pics of one of my little guys but don't know how to post them , I will e mail them to you if you would like. lvlice@aol.com Lisa