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Do you like having wildlife in your garden? I surely do. I don't mind if foxes do their business in the middle of my grass but I know some folk who have called in the authorities to poison squirrels just because they were digging holes in their lawn.:frown:

littleAudrey,I love any kinda wildlife.as James Herriott said "all creatures ,great and small" russ

I like wildlife. One day I'll buy a piece of woodland. I will let wildlife live there. It will be like a communion with nature everytime I sit down there and do nothing but just be there.

But today, no, not yet. Not in my garden

Most wildlife! :smile: Don't care much for Possums, Coons or Skunks though! :frown:

My "viewing spot" at the farm; ~~ grnspot110

We have loads of squirrels here but not red squirrels, they only live on the Isle of Wight now. We've got deer, foxes, badgers and so many different birds. I don't mind sharing my garden with other creatures only I could live without the earwigs!

I'd like to see a few more of these little fellers around. I took this pic in 2004 and haven't seen one since then.

grnspot110 said:

Most wildlife! :smile: Don't care much for Possums, Coons or Skunks though! :frown:

My "viewing spot" at the farm; ~~ grnspot110

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I second this

I'm in the live-and-let-live camp but sometimes you have to draw the line ... the line is my garden's perimeter.

We live on forty acres of forest land and our property borders a wildlife refuge----I could never live in a city, though there is plenty of "wildlife" there, so to speak!

My wife put in an extra row of beans for the groundhogs but didn't tell them which one was theirs. We are in town and we have squirrels, chipmunks, sparrows, starlings, bluejays, cardinals, a skunk, the odd raccoon, finches,etc. Ya I guess you could say we like wildlife.:laughing: Dusty

I completely adore wildlife and don't mind if they're in my yard. I must admit that I don't want them to eat my garden and mess it up, but they deserve to be there, and it's fine. I just try to get to my food before they do lol.

The foxes are real friendly.....they will even let you feed them a sausage......at least they keep the Rabbits under control......in Australia..........better than baiting 1080.......then you kill other wild life.

lizard said:

The foxes are real friendly.....they will even let you feed them a sausage......at least they keep the Rabbits under control......in Australia..........better than baiting 1080.......then you kill other wild life.

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I often read about the non native species you are plauged with in Australia, feral cats, hogs, goats, cane toads and I think rabbits were introduced as well.
We have cane toads in Florida, huge beastlike toads that will eat anything that moves or doesn't. One of my dogs decided to tangle with one and sometimes I think he was never the same.

I have had several opossum (our marsupials) encouters so far this fall. I decided the proper thing to do was relocate the problem as my dogs get them and it's a bad deal after that.
My plan was to grab the animal out of the tree using a glove put it in a bag and take it someplace....opossumlike. After she chomped down on my thumb, I abondoned that plan and went with plan B...crab net!
A week later I my dog caught her suiter under the tool shed. I dragged this one out by the tail with the dog in tow, by the time I had got to it it was out cold, playing possum if you will. This enabled me to place him in a feed bag and tie it off while I put the dog up and started the truck. He was none to pleased when we reached our destination as he had awoken for the release. There I was at 4:00am in flannel boxer shorts and bedroom slippers, in the middle of the road trying not to get attacked by a rouge opossum. Eventually he fell to the road got up and took off in a direction other than the one I was in and ran off into the woods none the worse for the encounter.

If you and your dog are playing with opossums you both need to be current with rabie shots :biggrin:... They have very big teeth ...
:smile:KennyV

KennyV said:

If you and your dog are playing with opossums you both need to be current with rabie shots :biggrin:... They have very big teeth ...
:smile:KennyV

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Thanks for the heads up Kenny, opossums are like squirrells in that they almost cannot carry rabies as they have an unusually low body temperature. When that young female latched onto my thunb I realized how powerful those jaws were. Luckily thier teeth are space far apart as they are omnivourus and I did not get cut. It did surprise me how fast they can react, a opossum eminates slow and stupid, no doubt part of their defense mechanism

I too enjoy wildlife. I live with trees on three sides of me and that brings all sorts of wildlife, coyotes, bears, coons, skunks, porcupines, etc...

I enjoy it at the northern property, now, but I'm sure once I have lived there for a few years, they'll be pesty. Especially the chipmunks, which can be annoying when they decide to get under the house. We've got black and grey squirrels, mostly, haven't seen any red ones, though we're lousy with those down here. Frogs are what we have the most of up there, and that's great as I've always got a kick out of those. The wife loves them too. We come home from wherever in the summer when we're up there and the house is sometimes dotted with tree frogs. Some of them are quite beautiful. Haven't yet seen a deer in my yard, but that's OK because I've got lots of hostas and would like to keep them.

First of all, I love wildlife - it's always a thrill to see a type of animal that I rarely see.

Now here's my possum story. About a year ago I was walking my dog at night in the city and a little possum popped out from around a corner and, seeing (or maybe smelling) us, bared its teeth and made a hissing sound. My dog didn't like that and picked up the possum in her mouth. Luckily she knows the command "drop it" from playing ball so I got her to drop the possum immediately.

I didn't see any blood so we left the possum and went on with our walk.

(continued)

Possum, Part II:

We came back to the spot where the possum had been dropped about 20 minutes later and it was gone. I believe that it hadn't been hurt in the encounter and had run away after playing "possum".

Here's my favorite part: about a week later, a small possum was on the opposite side of the fence from my dog (the dog was in our back yard) but the dog was not barking -- highly unusual -- she would normally bark like crazy if an animal was close to her on the opposite side of the fence.

I want to believe that it was the same possum and it came by to say "Hi, thank you for not killing me." I believe that my dog, Go-Go, remembered that specific possum. Here's a recent picture of Go-Go.

Two-Stroke said:

Here's a recent picture of Go-Go.

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Great looking guy... He looks just like my big boy I had years ago.. He was 115 pounds of fun.. :smile:KennyV

KennyV said:

Great looking guy... He looks just like my big boy I had years ago.. He was 115 pounds of fun.. :smile:KennyV

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Go-Go is a girl, the fourth German Shepherd Dog that I've had.

Two-Stroke said:

Go-Go is a girl, the fourth German Shepherd Dog that I've had.

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Oops .... and a great looking gal at that.. KennyV

briggs said:

I second this

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We have loads of possums, coons, skunks, many deer, sandhill cranes, some foxes, lots of groundhogs....have little use for the critters and they are one of the reasons I have that darn ugly fence around my garden plot.

Right now deer and feral hogs are a huge problem and certainly not wecome in my garden. However I don't mind visits from other wildlife, with the exception of a skunk. We have lots of Great Horned Owls in this area so they do a good job of keeping the skunk population to a minimum.

jigbuilder said:

Right now deer and feral hogs are a huge problem
lots of Great Horned Owls in this area

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Don't have hogs here but TOOOO many deer...
Owls are good to have around, keep all rodents in check also.
And skunks do seem to leave that lingering after flavor...:smile:KennyV

I've heard from neighbors that feral hogs can be an huge problem -- crops can look like somebody went crazy with a tractor. I'm not sure that, being feral, that they're "wildlife". In Alabama you can hunt them 12 months a year.

In Australia we have problems with wild camels,Dingo's, Emu and Kangaroo.
Rabbits....cane toads.........heaps of drama's....wild goats........endless list!:confused2:

lizard said:

In Australia we have problems with wild camels,Dingo's, Emu and Kangaroo.
Rabbits....cane toads.........heaps of drama's....wild goats........endless list!:confused2:

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Are you allowed fire arms in the country?
:smile:KennyV

TwoStroke,that is a nice looking dog,I had a white one when I was a kid.I also like that old shed in the background. If my thinking is correct deer don't like hostas.The great horned owl eats skunks cause he can't smell,I don't know how that was figgured out but that's what I read. russ

173abn said:

TwoStroke,that is a nice looking dog,I had a white one when I was a kid.I also like that old shed in the background. If my thinking is correct deer don't like hostas.The great horned owl eats skunks cause he can't smell,I don't know how that was figgured out but that's what I read. russ

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Missouri deer eat hostas, don't know about Kansas deer! :laughing: ~~ grnspot110

It's old news now but did anybody believe that the possum came back to thank Go-Go for sparing its life and that Go-Go remembered the possum so she didn't bark?

grnspot110 said:

Missouri deer eat hostas, don't know about Kansas deer! :laughing: ~~ grnspot110

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Michigan deer, too! My brother is protecting his with moth balls now. Seems to work alright, but stinks!

Two-Stroke said:

It's old news now but did anybody believe that the possum came back to thank Go-Go for sparing its life and that Go-Go remembered the possum so she didn't bark?

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Ever see a deer being rescued from something-or-other by someone-or-other on the news? After being freed, the deer always runs several yards and then stops and looks over it's shoulder before bolting into the woods. Never seen one fail to do that yet. The wife and I always say it's thanking it's savior.:wink:

You just never know.