'Possums and 'Coons in the city

[Jardin du Fort]

I have been painfully aware for a few years that there is a raccoon population in our area. One night I heard a ruckus outside the upstairs window on top of the roof of our mother-in-law wing, and looking outside managed to witness a big ol' boy doing the momba jamba with a smaller female. I set traps, and after about a week got them, took them out to the country. Now last summer I see two smaller bandits coming out a hole in the attic dormer of the vacant house next door. The owner is nowhere to be found, and I haven't (yet) tried to capture them, so I'm assuming they are still around.

So... two nights ago I let our collie out to do his thing, and there in the middle of the back yard, standing out in sharp contrast to the snow, is an opossum! Not a small one either. I estimate this one to be perhaps twenty pounds, about twice the size of our larger cat. Fortunately the dog is on-cable and not attacking the tree rat, probably not quite sure what it is. As he approaches the beast it is frozen and not moving...... until I approach with my flashlight, grab the dog's cable, and hiss at the critter. He is (I hope) somewhat blinded by my shining the light in his eyes, but he manages to scurry into the back corner of the yard where there is NO hole in the fence, one of the few places this is true. I realized that the critter had no route of escape, that I did not want the collie engaging it, and that other than bringing the dog back inside there was nothing I could do. I haven't seen him since, but I'm sure he's around somewhere.

And there you have it. I haven't planted the garden yet, but I am painfully aware that when I do, I will have to contend with these critters. If not these specific ones, then their brothers, sisters, offspring.... I know that I will at some time (maybe not for a year or two) be planting sweet corn. I know that the bandits, if left to their own devices, would probably steal every bit of corn that they can out of such a small garden as I will have. What else will they go after? Melons? Cukes? Beans? I don't know what their tastes are. And the 'possums? I don't even know if they are interested in garden produce. Wikipedia seems to indicate that they are mainly meat eaters, but also eat various fruits. Will they go after anything in a veggie garden?

I see three things I can do, yea verily even four. 1. set traps and trap the critters so they can be removed from the area. 2. use fencing that is sufficient to keep the critters out (probably impractical!). and 3. plant herbs and other plants that discourage the critters from the area. The fourth option would be to go to the local zoo and get some lion poop, to spread around the area.

What think ye? Are my options logical? Are there other options? No, I'm NOT going to get a lion to prowl the neighborhood!

Of course I haven't yet mentioned the bane of all gardeners, which I also have seen around, yea verily in my own back yard: Peter Cottontail!

[rainbowgardener]

Oh yes! I am four miles from downtown and definitely I have raccoons and opposums in my yard AND a resident woodchuck (no rabbits, I think the outdoor cats keep them away).

I don't have room where I am now to grow corn, but when I did, I gave up on it, because EVERY critter loves corn, not only the ones mentioned, but deer, birds, mice, etc etc. All of which were on our property.

Raccoons will eat anything! Woodchucks have favorites, but in a pinch they will eat pretty much anything you grow. And no, there is no herb that is going to deter them. Herbs are for deterring insects and small critters, maybe even mice. But the raccoon won't care.

Trapping will be pretty much an endless job. And it's not very nice to dump your problems on the people somewhere else.

To me the only real solution is fencing. I grow in raised beds and I just fence in individual beds. Put stakes around the bed, wrap it with deer netting/ bird netting, use earth staples to hold it down at the bottom and pull it together over the top and twist tie it together. The deer netting is cheap, light, easy to use. It is a little bit of a pain, because the bed is caged in, that means to weed or do anything, I have to open the cage up and then put it back together. But with the netting, that isn't too difficult.

Otherwise I would never eat a tomato, the critters would get every one. I have found that there are some things that don't need to be caged. I don't bother fencing the peppers (even bell peppers) or swiss chard, because for some reason the critters don't seem to like them. But definitely corn, tomatoes, melons they will go crazy for.

Other options to try... if you can put sprinklers on a motion detector, or loud music. Anything that isn't on a motion detector the animals will adapt to.

[estorms]

The easiest and most effective way to get rid of critters is to shoot them. Be sure to use some common sense and do not shoot in a suburban area.

[Jardin du Fort]

The easiest and most effective way to get rid of critters is to shoot them. Be sure to use some common sense and do not shoot in a suburban area.

So you're saying that since I don't live in a suburban area, that I can shoot them? I live in an urban area.

[LA47]

Mmmm. Your neighbors MIGHT object?

[Jardin du Fort]

Mmmm. Your neighbors MIGHT object?

Would be just another shooting in the neighborhood....

[estorms]

I live in a rural area. I know woodchucks are fair game. Technically, you need a hunting license to shoot a rabbit in small game season. Wild turkeys do not come too close to the house. Deer will come really close. We can see their tracks where they come right up and look in the windows. We have a chain link fence around the garden, but rabbits and woodchucks and other small animals get in underneath where the wire isn't tight. I wouldn't mind sharing, but these critters eat everything. I have about a hundred strawberries and have never eaten one. Target shooting is quite a popular sport here, so gunfire is not an unusual event.

[rainbowgardener]

So apparently despite your advocacy, you are not shooting the critters that eat your garden?

[applestar]

I've only seen an opossum up close once.
A few years ago, DH went tuna fishing and came home with I think 4 sizable yellow tail and one albacore/long fin. First time catching them and he was excited and ambitious, so he had opted to "butcher" them himself (bled and gutted on the boat). It took him until deep into the night on the picnic table with all the floodlights on. I carried trays and platters of the cleaned meat into the house until all the available surface was covered and he was still at it.

At some point he was finished outside and cleaned up, burying the carcasses along the back fence where we had the veg garden back then, and leaving the rinsed out galvanized trash can by the fence. (I won't get into how he weighed and vac sealed, etc.)

Next dawn, DH was dead to the world but there was a tremendous banging and rattling outside that jolted me awake. I cautiously went outside to find the source and discovered an opossum baring its fangs at me in the bottom of th trash can where it was trapped and couldn't climb out.

So there ya go. An idea for opossum trap. Good luck.

[LA47]

Just a caution. I have seen very large male coons and they will fight and injure or kill even larger dogs when cornered.

[rainbowgardener]

I have resident possum (s?), woodchuck, raccoons. The raccoons living in the city with so many people are pretty tame and used to people. In the past I have had raccoons eat out of my hands. I'm sure I could again, but I'm not trying to tame these. But they come to our back door to eat cat food, and don't leave unless I yell at them. I think the big one I yelled at yesterday might be a pregnant female. We usually have a litter of baby raccoons every year, but they wander off and find their own territories, so we don't just have more and more raccoons.

The raccoons are very smart and ingenious and are my candidates for taking over the world if humans manage to kill ourselves off. The oppossums though seem like they are dumber than doorknobs. I have no idea how they managed to survive this long. They are fearless, but slow and not all that well defended and they do things like drown themselves in a bucket of water.

[Jardin du Fort]

So that one occasion (Jan 4) is the one and only occurrence of actually seeing a possum here. I suspect he (it, she, whatever) is still around but not showing up in OUR yard, due to the collie. I haven't seen any signs of the 'coons either, but the house is still next door with the hole in the gable and an absentee owner. The snow of last week showed no critter footprints but I have my doubts that they would have been out in 10" of snow anyway.

I'll see if I can do something about any locals before the garden gets underway, but it will likely be an ongoing issue due to the unfortunate presence of vacant houses in the general area. Now if I could afford to buy the vacant property next door, I'd have room for a really BIG garden!