Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard
Around here I leave the opossums alone. As I learned from my father, they are very territorial with respect to rats and keep them at bay. They also eat few if any fruits but do a great job of reducing the number of beetle larvae in the soil. If they want to hang out in one of my citrus trees during the day its fine with me.
I also don't shoot the coyotes because we have way to many rabbits and rats in the brush that come down from the nearby open space. On the otherhand, a crackbarrel air rifle with a laser sight will nail any of these critters.
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Most interesting observations.
A question about citrus, are there any common animals in northamerica that eat citrus fruit? I have only limited experience so far with citrus, but have noted no bird pecks or squirrel bites on them. What ever is on the trees says on till picked, even for months.
There are some small rodents in my region that are mainly nocturnal. In the winter we have owls that show up and year round there are foxes and hawks along with cats that are about along with snakes. I try not to kill the black snakes since their removal can leave a niche for the more dangerous water moccasin and various rattlesnakes. Possums are slow and probably destroy the nests of rats and perhaps rabbits getting the young. I have on occasion observed them on wild growing plum trees eating fruit. The local armadillos burrow a lot around here for insects. I am sure that the raccoons will take fruit also.
In a study of Chicago-Cook County coyotes fruit was a significant part of their diet. Guard dogs are the best alternative, especially if I want to have chickens since we also have foxes. I suspect that the coyotes will just stay away most of the time. The eastern coyotes are often larger than the western variety. I have seen two dead ones on the road that were certainly at least 40 lbs. There may be some dog and wolf (red wolf and eastern canadian wolf) genes involved. So they present more of a threat to dogs.