What's going on in your garden (2023)?

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My edible plants are still dead, except for the oregano, and it's not looking great. I should be able to plant new stuff in about one month.

CD
 
Yorky said:
This one's a regular visitor.

I haven't seen this one up close before.

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Yeah, there so cute... untill you get one of the little &%*#$!!! in your attic. I've got fresh squirrel poop in the attic, but I can't seem to catch the squirrel. It chewed its way in through a damaged roof vent, and I'll need to hire someone to get up on the roof to replace it (and probably replace them all, while they are up there).

CD
 
A lot of fox poo :(

TVC has been doing some research on the safest way to stop them so we will be brewing up a concoption at some point.
 
I have a big decision to make this year. To have a garden or not. There has been a lot of development up the road from my house and that is the supposed cause for an influx of the rat population in our town. We had a couple last year that I battled with. They were coming in under the back fence into my garden. Whenever I came out they would run i to my neighbour's yard. I trapped a few but by the time the snow flew, I still had a regular visitor. We cleaned out almost everything in the back yard so they have no reason to come and no place to hide. So…I may skip this year.I have a few rows of garlic. I may research and just do more garlic and onions and herbs. No quite sure yet. I’ve had a garden for as ling as I can remember.
 
Rocklobster said:
I have a big decision to make this year. To have a garden or not. There has been a lot of development up the road from my house and that is the supposed cause for an influx of the rat population in our town. We had a couple last year that I battled with. They were coming in under the back fence into my garden. Whenever I came out they would run i to my neighbour's yard. I trapped a few but by the time the snow flew, I still had a regular visitor. We cleaned out almost everything in the back yard so they have no reason to come and no place to hide. So…I may skip this year.I have a few rows of garlic. I may research and just do more garlic and onions and herbs. No quite sure yet. I’ve had a garden for as ling as I can remember.
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It isn't great sadly but they're are few options that work long term except poisoning or lethal traps. If you manage to get them to not visit, what happens when someone else does the same because they now see them in their garden/roof/garage? And as soon as you start with gardening again, they'll come back as they find your garden again. The development will just have meant they need a new home so they have found one. Summer is easier because they have other more natural food supplies so they'll not cause issues but they will still be there and return when the weather gets colder, only in greater numbers.

Living on a farm there has only been 1 option really for rats and mice (especially with the mouse plague in NSW, giggle it and you'll be horrified Farmers, rural residents warned to be vigilant to prevent another mouse plague and Mouse plague on hold thanks to floods, CSIRO thinks ). Sadly that is simply a case of how to kill them as quickly as possible to minimise suffering. Traps (live or lethal) don't work with other animals or birds around. My chooks would get caught in them without fail. So the choice becomes, how quickly I can kill them AND how safe I can make it for anything that may eat the poison that's not intended for it or how safe the carcass of the poisoned rat/mouse is. This is a big concern for me with wildlife eating poisoned carcasses.

I use a modern secondary poisoning safe poison block. My chooks would have to eat (in 1 sitting) their bodyweight in the poison to die from it, dogs or cats are likely wouldn't because it's a wax block of grain. Wildlife isn't affected, so birds of prey and scavengers are safe to eat the dead rat/mouse. The blocks can be nailed down or put into the poison traps (black boxes). I usually buy the 8kg size so technically one of my chooks could die from it if they ate all of it in one go, but that amount usually lasts me 2 years and the volume of poison is bigger than the chook. My chooks will and do catch mice and eat them. I have had one occasion where I've found a chook chocking on a dead mouse and when I cut the mouse on half with a space, it was clear it was a poisoned one because it's inside were blue (same colour as the poison (so I removed it)). I'd prefer that the rat or mouse didn't suffer. Often we find them dead next to the black poison box itself. Recently I found one (this week) that had died as it walked along. Literally just dropping dead presumably from a heart attack. Sadly it really is a case of how quickly does it die and is the carcass safe to be eaten by wildlife/ farm animals?
 
Thanks. Another problem is that my partner is deathly afraid of them. She won’t go off of the back deck for a couple of days if she see’s one. So, I’m trying to set up traps around the perimeter and hopefully intercept the odd one.
 
SatNavSaysStraightOn said:
It isn't great sadly but they're are few options that work long term except poisoning or lethal traps. If you manage to get them to not visit, what happens when someone else does the same because they now see them in their garden/roof/garage? And as soon as you start with gardening again, they'll come back as they find your garden again. The development will just have meant they need a new home so they have found one. Summer is easier because they have other more natural food supplies so they'll not cause issues but they will still be there and return when the weather gets colder, only in greater numbers.

Living on a farm there has only been 1 option really for rats and mice (especially with the mouse plague in NSW, giggle it and you'll be horrified Farmers, rural residents warned to be vigilant to prevent another mouse plague and Mouse plague on hold thanks to floods, CSIRO thinks ). Sadly that is simply a case of how to kill them as quickly as possible to minimise suffering. Traps (live or lethal) don't work with other animals or birds around. My chooks would get caught in them without fail. So the choice becomes, how quickly I can kill them AND how safe I can make it for anything that may eat the poison that's not intended for it or how safe the carcass of the poisoned rat/mouse is. This is a big concern for me with wildlife eating poisoned carcasses.

I use a modern secondary poisoning safe poison block. My chooks would have to eat (in 1 sitting) their bodyweight in the poison to die from it, dogs or cats are likely wouldn't because it's a wax block of grain. Wildlife isn't affected, so birds of prey and scavengers are safe to eat the dead rat/mouse. The blocks can be nailed down or put into the poison traps (black boxes). I usually buy the 8kg size so technically one of my chooks could die from it if they ate all of it in one go, but that amount usually lasts me 2 years and the volume of poison is bigger than the chook. My chooks will and do catch mice and eat them. I have had one occasion where I've found a chook chocking on a dead mouse and when I cut the mouse on half with a space, it was clear it was a poisoned one because it's inside were blue (same colour as the poison (so I removed it)). I'd prefer that the rat or mouse didn't suffer. Often we find them dead next to the black poison box itself. Recently I found one (this week) that had died as it walked along. Literally just dropping dead presumably from a heart attack. Sadly it really is a case of how quickly does it die and is the carcass safe to be eaten by wildlife/ farm animals?
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I've mentioned before that I live a few blocks from a working ranch, and rats come into the neighborhood. The only thing that has worked for us is feral cats. When they are around, we don't see any rats. Yet, they don't bother the rabbits and squirrels. Probably too big for the cats to mess with.

CD
 
caseydog said:
I've mentioned before that I live a few blocks from a working ranch, and rats come into the neighborhood. The only thing that has worked for us is feral cats. When they are around, we don't see any rats. Yet, they don't bother the rabbits and squirrels. Probably too big for the cats to mess with.

CD
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We have many feral cats (and kittens this year) but we still have rats and mice. The previous tenant had 20+ cats and didn't take all of them with him. We see them daily. We also see the rats daily as well at the moment even in broad daylight. Mice have been less of an issue this year since the rats made an appearance.
 
We have fishers just outside of town. They have eaten all of the cats in our area. Anybody with cat’s for pets rarely let them out. We hear them shrieking just below our bedroom windows in the middle of the nights in the summer.
 
Rocklobster said:
We have fishers just outside of town. They have eaten all of the cats in our area. Anybody with cat’s for pets rarely let them out. We hear them shrieking just below our bedroom windows in the middle of the nights in the summer.
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They have those where my wife grew up in upstate NY.
 
Rocklobster said:
Very elusive and vicious.
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We have bobcats in North Texas, but they rarely enter human populated areas. Every now and then they kill a small (around ten pound) dog. Teddy was too big for a bobcat to bother.

CD
 
Kingfisher.

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