In article ,
"limey" wrote:

Squirrels are the bane of my existence. Tree rats. We can't keep them out
of the fruit trees each year and haven't eaten any of the fruit yet. They
take a bite of the green fruit, chuck it and take another.

Does anyone have any tips? They'd chew right through netting if we put it
on the trees.

Hooray! Another old curmudgeon who calls them damn things "tree rats"!
We live in Boise, full of trees and crawing with tree rats, and half the
population thinks they are "cute."

I planted a pair of English walnut trees 10 years ago, and haven't had a
single walnut yet! Each year, as the walnuts flesh out and swell in
their green pods, the tree rats come from 2 blocks in all directions and
strip my trees.

I am not allowed by law to shoot, poison, harass, intimidate, badger,
bother, interfere with or otherwise molest these little gray monsters.

This year I may try making "rat guards" out of sheet metal for each of
the main branching trunks of the trees, higher than the "rats" can leap,
but I really don't think that is the total answer, as they can leap from
the adjoining fence, or from a nearby tree into the crown of my nut
trees.

Just wondering .. how do commercial nut orchards save a a nut to harvest
from these furry locusts?

sigh...

Allen