i wont do this again any time soon

[peppero]

i thought it was bad enough that we had 10+ inches of rain in about two days plus a tornado, but then this raccoon paid me a little visit and dug up a bunch of plants just to get the dry dog food i had put in the bottom of the holes. no more dog food for me until i get a trap(humane) and move the rascal out. i had already moved 13 skunks and one raccoon out last year. oh well.

[stormymater]

I had my recent runin with our own "Mr. Jerk" raccoon. I left the garage door open one night last week - next am I found a 20# bag of fish meal torn into & scattered (slippery stuff on a concrete floor). Cleaned it up (grr as if there isn't enough to do now). That pm, I was sitting in the garage doorway, potting up plants when who strolls up but Mr. Jerk. When he saunters within 5 feet of me I squawk & his eyes bulge & he SCOOTS stage right. I dutifully close the garage door & go to bed.
Next am I go downstairs & find several of my "keeper" plants torn out of their cups (including my ONLY remaining Regina's Yellow) with the stalks gnawed into bits & the roots torn up... & topped with a very messy raccoon poop.
Mr. Jerk was definitely sending me a message.
Well, FINE.
It's on now Mr. Jerk!

[VORTREKER]

Show him who's boss----

[Tormato]

I won't plant...

5 elderberry
4 serviceberry
3 pear
2 grape
1 apple
1 lilac
strawberries
sunchokes
black raspberries
and sweet corn

...where my neighbor's 4 ft diameter oak will fall.

Trmat

Originally Posted by peppero

i thought it was bad enough that we had 10+ inches of rain in about two days plus a tornado, but then this raccoon paid me a little visit and dug up a bunch of plants just to get the dry dog food i had put in the bottom of the holes. no more dog food for me until i get a trap(humane) and move the rascal out. i had already moved 13 skunks and one raccoon out last year. oh well.

How do you manage moving 13 skunks? Do you dress up in a hazmat suit first?

Ted

[peppero]

i thought i would provide a little update on the raccoon problem i had recently. i borrowed a trap baited with the dog food and proceeded to catch three raccoons and two possums with at least one more of something lurking out there. so far no more dug up plants. as for moving the 13 skunks the little rascals were for the most part very docile and were very pretty. unbelievably, i was not sprayed even once. as i approached them i would always talk VERY softly and would spread a 6x8 blue tarp out in front of me and would walk VERY slowly up to the trap and would VERY cafefully cover the trap, put it in the back of my country cadil lac and deliver them to a new location. worked every time.

[florin]

I have to ask why do you put dog food at the bottom of your hole.

[amideutch]

I have to ask why do you put dog food at the bottom of your hole.

Same reason people stick fish heads and parts in the bottom of their planting holes. For the nutrients that they give to the plant. Only problem is the domestic and non domestic animals that have a keen sense of smell that are in the area as peppero found out. Ami

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by peppero

i thought i would provide a little update on the raccoon problem i had recently. i borrowed a trap baited with the dog food and proceeded to catch three raccoons and two possums with at least one more of something lurking out there. so far no more dug up plants. as for moving the 13 skunks the little rascals were for the most part very docile and were very pretty. unbelievably, i was not sprayed even once. as i approached them i would always talk VERY softly and would spread a 6x8 blue tarp out in front of me and would walk VERY slowly up to the trap and would VERY cafefully cover the trap, put it in the back of my country cadil lac and deliver them to a new location. worked every time.

I hope that new location was far far away b'c in the past I had hired a kid up the road to trap them here at my place and Jake drove them up to the end of the road, about two miles away and released them and they came back and yes, I KNOW at least two of them were MY former raccoons b/c one was the largest coon I've ever seen and the other one limped/

They weren't doing any damage here except for eating the bird seed that was down low enough for them to get at.

Skunks? Not really a problem but when the babies are born they seem to want to hold a party in the backyard each week and they chatter incessantly.......as I'm trying to go to sleep.

it could be worse than that b'c for the past two years I've had a Black Bear Problem. He or she was so cute as a cub, here for the bird seed, last year cub was BIG, ripped down several expensive bird feeders and almost got one of my feline kids who was dozing on the deck railing.

And no sightings of THE bear so far this year but on hot nights I no longer keep the front door open with the screen, nor do I leave any of the sliding door screen ones open.

NYS is about to pass a bear bill b/c the problem has escalated and at first you get a warning and then if someone reports you as to bird seed being put out that attracts them, then it's real money. And yet DEC says oh, we're not after the folks who just want to feed the birds. HAH!

We have lots of squirrels and coyotes. The neighbor traps the squirrels and then hauls them to the other side of the lake. They have the choice of swimming five miles home or walking twenty miles home.

The other morning, he went to his patio and his trap was gone. He looked down the road and saw a coyote carrying his trap away with a squirrel in it. He ran after the coyote which dropped the cage. The squirrel was still in the trap and uninjured, but dead. Must have scared it to death.

About the dog food in the holes, the manufacturers put lots of salt in dog food. It helps keep the oils in the dog food from becoming rancid and it tastes better to the dog. I wonder if the salt will over time build up in the soil and harm the garden.

Ted

[Vince]

Peppero, consider yourself lucky for those skunks being so timid. Some time ago I trapped a skunk by accident and it was spraying like crazy. As I recall we had to cover it with a tarp and then shrink wrap the entire cage. Threw it in the back of a pickup and drove it 5 miles or so away. Wow, what a mess!

And just so everyone will know, tomato juice does NOT seem to help deodorize you or your dog after an incident with a skunk. We have a friend who has a condition which prevents her from smelling odors and from tasting some flavors. Her dog recently had a run in with a skunk just before she needed to leave for work. She quickly bathed him in tomato juice, water, and vinegar even though she couldn't smell the odor. She left for work where she is the boss over a few hundred employees. They forced her to return home with instructions to take a bath in tomato juice and not return to work until someone tells her she smells okay. It still took a couple of days before she didn't smell like a skunk.

Ted

[habitat_gardener]

Originally Posted by tedln

And just so everyone will know, tomato juice does NOT seem to help deodorize you or your dog after an incident with a skunk....

No, but there's a formula widely available online that does help -- google peroxide skunk. It can't be sold as a product because it has to be mixed right before use. It works -- have had occasion to try it a couple times. But sometimes it takes more than one application.

Also, in case your dog gets skunked and spends the night in a newspaper-covered room where she has lots of skunky diarrhea and then, while you're picking up the newspapers in the morning, she goes into the next room and has more diarrhea all over the rug, the Nature's Miracle Skunk Formula works wonders. Nothing would get the skunky odor out of her nylon collar, however.