Squirrels and Rabbits

Hello Julian,

I am sure you are asked this question a lot, we have a few squirrels in our garden and a couple of wild rabbits.

As much as I love nature and animals these are becoming a real pest. The squirrel has destroyed almost 10 bird feeders now, the squirrel proof ones too. The squirrel and rabbit have eaten all our atrawberries this year and the rabbits have eaten many of our plants and flowers, to the point that we never saw any flowers this year as the plants were chewed down to the ground.

I have tried to fix my bird feeders as best I can as these have all been costly purchases some of them I have had to half fill with gravel to stop the nuts from falling through the holes that the squirrel has made in the mesh holders. I now also have to buy fresh chillies which I put in the top of the feeders and also a large stone st stop the squirrel from taking the nuts out of the top. It is a constant battle trying to ensure that the nuts are eaten by the birds, it is also costing me a lot as sometimes the squirrel can empty a nut feeder a day if he manages to overcome my deterrents.

Like I said I love animals and wildlife and love to see them in the garden however the damage is becoming far too costly.

Can you suggest anyways of deterring the squirrels and rabbits from our garden. I do not want to enter into any poisons / traps etc I just wondered if there were any plants etc that we could have in our garden that help to keep these pesky little fellas away.

I look frward to hearing from you

Regards

Michelle

Dear Michelle,

 Thanks for your e-mail.

 I regret your problem with squirrels and rabbits is a common one and not easy to solve.

 For the rabbits, the best defence is rabbit wire where possible. Try burying the wire under the soil, so rasbbits cant dig up plants and burrow underneath, also net round vulnerable plants. There is also a product called Grazers that you can spray on plants, this deters them from eating plants and it conatins calcium which is good for the plant.

 For squirrels, there is a product called Squirrel stop that is sprayed over areas that deters squirrels . There is also The Ultra pest stop sonic repeller that we sell. This omits a sonic sound that humans cant hear but rabbits and squirrels can, some customers claim they are very good at repelling pests.

 There are also humane traps for bot these pests. 

I suspect you are going to need to continue what you are doing and incorporate some of the above.

 Hope this is some help.

Regards

Julian