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ARRRRRRRG! &*^!@ Squirels!

schloaty

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So, I go out to check on the plants....and what do I find?

four or five of the best pitchers were ripped apart on one of my best neps THAT WAS TO BE IN THE NECPS SHOW AT THE END OF THE MONTH!!!!!! :censor: :cry:

I was cursing like a sailor....trying to think WHO or WHAT could have done it..

Deer? no - pitchers would just be gone....there are shreds everywhere.

Cat? Possible...but why?

One of the KIDS?!? definate possibility...need to invest in a small coffin.

Nope. None of the above. I discovered the perps back for MORE the following moring. I am going to dust off the ol' pellet gun and have some squirrel stew.

There was one touching thing that happened out of all this. My four year old started to cry because Daddy's plant got messed up....and she knew how mad I was, even though I did NOT let it out for her to see.
 
Oh Man, Dave -

I feel for you. Same thing happened to me last year. Come September before the show, they go insane! Every day somethin' else would be dug up.

The first thing that happened this September was that the varmints dug out 7 of the VFTs I'd grown for the Show Sales table. Now I have a lot of plants under a chicken wire cage thing.

I learned from Bob Z., to try Cayenne pepper. It seems to be working, but the live LFS looks ugly as heck. It was 88 cents a bottle at Ocean State Job Lot. I've sprinkled it all around the soil of the exposed plants. This weekend I went to Patel's Indian Foods supply and got a bag of Middle Eastern "Chili Powder - Extra Hot". Man this stuff is really red.

So, if some of my stuff looks weird and orangey at the show you'll know why.

Back up plan is a sling shot - I can peg em from the second story window (where a home office is) ...
 
suggestions..........

.410 shotgun
5864.jpg


OR

22 rimfire
Untitled-1357.jpg
 
So, I go out to check on the plants....and what do I find?

four or five of the best pitchers were ripped apart on one of my best neps THAT WAS TO BE IN THE NECPS SHOW AT THE END OF THE MONTH!!!!!! :censor: :cry:

I was cursing like a sailor....trying to think WHO or WHAT could have done it..

Deer? no - pitchers would just be gone....there are shreds everywhere.

Cat? Possible...but why?

One of the KIDS?!? definate possibility...need to invest in a small coffin.

Nope. None of the above. I discovered the perps back for MORE the following moring. I am going to dust off the ol' pellet gun and have some squirrel stew.

There was one touching thing that happened out of all this. My four year old started to cry because Daddy's plant got messed up....and she knew how mad I was, even though I did NOT let it out for her to see.
I almost hit on of the little devils with my bike the other day...I swerved to avoid it because I had new tires but after reading this thread I almost feel like the mess would have been worth it.
I'm joking, of course, but man they're annoying...I think Presto put her plants in a little barbed wire cage to protect them from the beasts. I've considered doing the same in the past but when I moved they never seem to bother coming up to the front porch anymore.
I'm really sorry that they ruined some of your coolest plants. Someday Nepenthes will evolve to eat them.
Cayenne pepper worked pretty well too.
 
Aw, that really sucks. Sorry to hear that happened :(
 
I'd go the more complicated route.


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I'd go the more complicated route.


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rofl
 
Man that video is great!
 
  • #10
And yet nobody has asked what the prize winning Nepenthes was? I must know!

xvart.
 
  • #11
i was just gonna ask that xvart xD
 
  • #12
So, I go out to check on the plants....and what do I find?

four or five of the best pitchers were ripped apart on one of my best neps THAT WAS TO BE IN THE NECPS SHOW AT THE END OF THE MONTH!!!!!! :censor: :cry:

I was cursing like a sailor....trying to think WHO or WHAT could have done it..

Deer? no - pitchers would just be gone....there are shreds everywhere.

Cat? Possible...but why?

One of the KIDS?!? definate possibility...need to invest in a small coffin.

Nope. None of the above. I discovered the perps back for MORE the following moring. I am going to dust off the ol' pellet gun and have some squirrel stew.

There was one touching thing that happened out of all this. My four year old started to cry because Daddy's plant got messed up....and she knew how mad I was, even though I did NOT let it out for her to see.


btw i hope it can recover, if it recovers.
 
  • #13
Hey all, thanks for the comiseration and advice.

The nep was sold to me as macfarleni, but I don't really think that's what it was. It is perhaps a hybrid of macfarlenei and sanguinea? Not sure....Maybe macfarlenei with ramspina? Sanguinea with ramspina?

The pitchers are a DARK maroon....with almost black speckles on the outside....their a creamy green color with light maroon speckles on the inside. They have fuzzy-ish onthe outside. The largest pitcher was, oh, 6 or 7 inches from base to the top of the lid.

The plant itself has dark green leaves with a maroon finish....and the mail leaf veins and stem is maroon.


It will definately recover, since the monsters only ruined the pitchers. I just had to snip off the remains of the traps. The plant is fine. I may still bring it, since it does still have some good pitchers...it's just not the show stopper any more. :-(
 
  • #14
I would be so mad! There's a lot of squirrels here, if one of them ever goes for my plants I'll get my pellet gun.
 
  • #15
I lose a lot of fruit to squirrels and would definitely start shooting if not for the 50 x 100 ft lot size here. Even a pellet gun is too much of a risk from the available shooting angles.
 
  • #16
may i suggest a paintball gun Bruce? should be nonlethal most of the time on squirrels outside of a head shot..........has done wonders for training the neighborhood cats that my yard is considered "no mans land"......squirrels may figure it out......if not it should be loads of entertainment if nothing else
 
  • #17
may i suggest a paintball gun Bruce? should be nonlethal most of the time on squirrels outside of a head shot..........has done wonders for training the neighborhood cats that my yard is considered "no mans land"......squirrels may figure it out......if not it should be loads of entertainment if nothing else

O.....M......G!

That's just hillarious to contemplate....Can you imagine? Rainbow squirrels running all over the neighborhood?!?

Would by like so psychadelic cartoon...
 
  • #18
yeah.....the neighbors werent happy with me for awhile...though i must say a six pack, a paintball gun and reactive targets made for an entertaining evening or two :D...but i only shot the cats when they were in my yard and the paint balls were water based paint so they got over it and the cats got the idea after a few weeks anyway.......that and i informed the neighbors when i lived in the country i used whatever rifle was handy, and that i wasnt against buying a good pellet gun and perminately solving the problem....they much preferred my non lethal solution
 
  • #19
haha rattler, my family works the same way, they gave fair warning to the neighbor that the cats were scratching the tops of our cars and that it was illegal to have them loose as it was... the neighbor got really mad and said they'd call the cops for threatening to take care of the situation our way...

needless to say the cat ended up "disappearing" and when the cops came they said they'd have done the same thing and left...

poor kitty...
 
  • #20
And if we are just shooting squirrels, why not eat them! How about a squirrel melt!

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