Possum deterrent

[Letsgokate]

Ok there are some other creatures who are enjoying my garden. Not the veggie garden (yet) but pumpkin seedlings I have planted in the ground, ate the tops right off and my passionfruit vines, eating the leaves. Crikey wait until the fruit arrives.

We made some covers/net out of chicken wire that has gone straight over the pumpkin seedling and they are growing back, also covered up rockmelon the same way but obviously they can't stay on as they all grow. With the passionfruit they are growing up a fence so the possums just walk along the top rail and stop for a nibble, midnight snack.

It will just be a matter of time before they start eating the new growth on my other fruit trees and maybe the veggies. Now I like possums and I don't mind sharing a bit but not as much as they are helping themselves too and with all my new stuff growing they are not likly to move on too much good tucker.

So I know I'm not the only one to have this problem, so what have people tried, sprays, home made remedies, water sprayers, ultrasonic devices, chimes in trees etc etc. open to all suggestions and I'm sure others will benefit. I guess it would be nice to find a permanent solution rather than having to spray plants every week, be nice if the sonic devices worked.

 

[ClissAT]

Letsgo, funny you should mention possums!

Just 2 nights ago, I chassed a possum off my upstairs verandah. Probably the same one I chase away every year. It usually stays away then.

I have a heavy shovel handle & I use it strongly to push the critter right off the banister which is a 3.5m drop to the ground. This latest one was just above the bougainvillea so I it swiped into the vine where it got all hung up. But I persisted poking it until eventually it fell through the vine to the ground leaving lots of fur & no doubt some blood.

But it will not forget that event & will be less likely to come upstairs again. Just as well because it has already sprayed everywhere. There was foul piss odour all along the verandah.

I have previously used poly pipe (as in a cow flogger) to give the possum a good hiding.
There's no need to worry about hurting them. They are as tough as nails & bash the crap out of each other at mating time. They even hold their own against many dogs.

So you could stand guard around your garden for a few nights & have a go at hitting it.
I don't know if other possum deterrents work. I recon the electronic ones wouldn't work because the snake & rodent scarers that I got about 2yrs ago stopped working right at the 12mth date but they were still letting rodents in around the cabin & the occasional snake has wandered through also.
Never tried that smelly stuff that is sprayed around. Hitting them with a water jet from the hose or similar might also work.

 

[Mark]

I used this Scarecrow water deterrent for 12-18 months and it did work but it also shot me and the family more times than I liked

I guess it can help to change behavior.

Netting over poly piping works well and is easy to employ. I find protecting seedlings until they are bigger usually is enough then the possums tend to leave the mature veggies alone.

 

[Letsgokate]

I used this Scarecrow water deterrent for 12-18 months and it did work but it also shot me and the family more times than I liked

I know I read this on another post and just about wet myself laughing didn't get that on video for us all to watch did you that is something that could go on a timer just for night time use.

Might be worth getting a couple, might also work to spray any birds that try and eat the fruit during the day. And spray any people trying to nick anything at night

We have some poly pipe ready to use on the veggies if needed. Can't really do it on the passionfruit.

@ClissAT when I read your post last night I thought ouch poor possum, but after going out and seeing that they stripped one of my passionfruit of it's leaves last night I'm kind of in agreement

We think we have more than one possum here, we have seen mum with a baby and there were 2 dead on the road a while back, so they are around. The dog chases something out the back every night so maybe it's a possum.

Maybe I need to employ this guy, that fell from a big gum on our place last year.

At this stage we are leaning towards an electric fence type setup. Bit like this, but I'm sure we could buy the bits and make it up to suit our needs. Along the fence, and maybe around the orchard on the ground. We a timer, or daylight sensor so only works at night so I don't get zapped. Still a concept at this stage.

Another thought was whether motion sensing lights would work. I know possums tend to freeze when you shine a touch at them, so wold they run away if a light came on?

Oh and on the topic of possums, don't know if I have said before. That our house has a chimney and fire place. We blocked up the fireplace as we don't want it, but when we first came here we forgot to block the chimney so after a few weeks a possum found it's way down the chimney and was stuck. So we had to clear the furniture out of the lounge room. Unblock the fireplace, turn the lights off and go in another room and wait for it to leave. Never heard anything the only way we knew it had left was little sooty footprints on the carpet. So we put everything back but the sucker did it again a few days later, Only this time we realized we needed to block the chimney so no issues every since.

 

[Mark]

Yep there's nothing quite like the experience of being unexpectedly shot by a cold powerful burst of water whilst dreamily admiring the vegetable garden

I'm not sure lights would work either... exclusion is probably the surest way to stop possums eating crops.

 

[Letsgokate]

I'm not sure lights would work either... exclusion is probably the surest way to stop possums eating crops

Totally agree exclusion would be the surest way and same applies to other pests, like fruit fly when the time comes, birds etc. Fruit fly would be seasonal like when things are in fruit, same with birds. Where as the possums will eat anytime and eat the leaves as well as fruit. So I could cover trees when in fruit for birds/fruit fly and take off the net afterwards where as possums is more of an on going problem. So not sure I can permanently or want to or if it's practical to cover trees, vines etc long term. They might leave the covered things alone but them move onto the uncovered goodies.

Like at the moment they are eating the passionfruit because they have easy access up the fence, if I stop them eating them, they then may move onto the young fruit tress that aren't covered. So I need to be able to protect biggish areas at the same time, and then hopefully they get scared off and move elsewhere.

I covered some rockmelon seedlings with chicken wire until they were too big and growing through, now they are uncovered so what's to stop possums eating them now. Maybe possums only eat new growth but things will always have new growth.

Maybe it's a case of scare them off and they will leave for a while at least.

It's nature wonderful

 

[Mark]

Yes it's certainly a conundrum and when we first moved here and started seeing our vegetables and fruits eaten by possums I went into overdrive trying to stop them.

However, overtime I mostly gave up, except for covering some seedlings, but I do always sow more than we need and inevitably some plants end up getting through.

We now grow so much fruit that it doesn't matter if some are lost to possums. And once fruit trees are big enough possum damage is minimal. Actually, birds are more of a pest on our property particularly parrots.

Total exclusion is really the only option to completely save plants from pests however as you say it's often not practical.

 

[Letsgokate]

Well I'll be like you were in the beginning until I am in the position like you where I have lots of extra fruit, but that won't be for a few years. So I will have to stop them until then.

I just bought a motion activate sprinkler, basically the same as the ScareCrow ones from Bunnings, for $55 it's a White's make. As an interim thing, think it will need several approaches. You can in what we think get better ones, one is called the Yard Enforcer from Orbit, looks mean but can't get them in Australia, and more expensive. But it has a day or night or on all the time options, so would solve the getting squirted problem you had Mark and other sprinklers can be added on.

 

[Mark]

OMG get the yard enforcer now! What a cool device to protect the vegetable garden from animals. I see (in the link i made above) the Yard Enforcer is not sold on eBay Australia yet unfortunately unless you buy it from o/s seller but postage would be high I expect otherwise I'd probably buy one!

It sure is mean

 

[Letsgokate]

Terminator of sprinklers,

Cost on eBay is approximately $150 delivered. We will see how the one I got from Bunnings goes, we might end up with upgrade down the track.

It was rather hilarious setting it up, hard not to get wet, dog thought it was a great fun setting it off. Grandson also thought it was great fun to run in front of it.

 

[Mark]

Check out this thread here about ultrasonic bird/animal deterrents...

 

[OskarDoLittle]

Oh the Yard Enforcer...that's priceless! Kept waiting (hoping) for the presenter to get wet.
We used to have a few possums...they were always banging around on the roof...not sure whether they stopped coming because we cut down all the golden canes on one boundary (these seemed to be their ladder up to the roof) but I expected them to hit the garden badly - but they haven't. We do have a very bright sensor light over it...but I'm not sure that would be enough. But perhaps a combination of lights, water (I'd suggest noise but that would keep you all awake too!) would do the trick