user 14190
Too old to care anyway.
- Joined
- Dec 15, 2018
- Messages
- 837
- Reaction score
- 3,624
My wife has an area set aside for vegie garden, fruit trees and chooks, it is an area about 900 square meters. Has numerous fences to divide sections off for the chooks to get green grass. A few months ago we lost 2 chooks to a chicken hawk and we were feeding a multitude of parrots, so we decided to cover the chook yard sections with wire netting, so that was done and then she remembered that the previous year she had had a problem with wood ducks coming into the vegie garden section and walking all over her bulb type plants, onions and leeks, and when they walked on them they broke the stalk and the plant died, they also liked lettuce and fresh pea plants, so we covered that section except for a corner where there was a large passion fruit vine growing as it was growing over the fence into the orchard section. The passion fruit vine was absolutely loaded with fruit and in length is about 8 meters long and about 1.5 meters wide, it has a frame to support it, but also took over the fence. We have never lost any fruit of any type to birds, the occasional rat got a few, but poison was placed so that it was easier than climbing a tree. The perimeter fence is 6 feet high, has wire netting from top metal support and nailed to timber set into ground, the whole lot is covered in shade cloth to keep the wind out. There is an electric fence runs around the bottom 300mm for rats, another wire at about 800mm for possums and a further one along the top rail for anything that makes it up that far.
Just as the passion fruit started to ripen we started to notice a few nibbled on, so more rat bait was placed out in storm water pipes so the birds do not have easy access to them during the day, the baits are screwed onto a section of timber so they cannot be moved by the rats. So after a few more nights of a lot lot more fruit being eaten and the baits going I put a possum trap in the garden and got a brush tail possum, it was duly released unharmed after a severe talking to. Then the search was on as to how they were avoiding the electric fence. After adding more wires in various places, I think we have found that they are using one of the handles on the electric fence at a gate that is 4 feet high colour bond steel, was made from steel as a gate to keep snakes out of the garden, the gate is a very close fit to the posts and has worked, but the possums seem to be climbing onto the handle and then jumping up to the top of the gate and over they go. Have placed a couple of wires alongside and between posts, but last night only one fruit was eaten, so we might have it now, will know over the next few nights. First time in about 15 years that we have had a problem with the possums.
Many years ago I thought that we had an agreement with the possums that I would leave the trees alone if they stayed out of the garden, now we have too many trees, it is amazing what grows in 25 years.
Just as the passion fruit started to ripen we started to notice a few nibbled on, so more rat bait was placed out in storm water pipes so the birds do not have easy access to them during the day, the baits are screwed onto a section of timber so they cannot be moved by the rats. So after a few more nights of a lot lot more fruit being eaten and the baits going I put a possum trap in the garden and got a brush tail possum, it was duly released unharmed after a severe talking to. Then the search was on as to how they were avoiding the electric fence. After adding more wires in various places, I think we have found that they are using one of the handles on the electric fence at a gate that is 4 feet high colour bond steel, was made from steel as a gate to keep snakes out of the garden, the gate is a very close fit to the posts and has worked, but the possums seem to be climbing onto the handle and then jumping up to the top of the gate and over they go. Have placed a couple of wires alongside and between posts, but last night only one fruit was eaten, so we might have it now, will know over the next few nights. First time in about 15 years that we have had a problem with the possums.
Many years ago I thought that we had an agreement with the possums that I would leave the trees alone if they stayed out of the garden, now we have too many trees, it is amazing what grows in 25 years.
Love my dogs but life style does not fit with them at this stage of my life. 
