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- By Home Decor
How to keep chipmunks out of garden
Keeping chipmunks out of garden can be a challenging task. Chipmunks are small and fast, and they are known for their intelligence and resourcefulness when it comes to finding food sources. They can often be seen raiding gardens in search of food, digging up plants and uprooting vegetables. If you have noticed an increase in chipmunk activity in your garden, there are several steps you can take to keep them away.
In summer he eats berries and mushrooms with pleasure, and can eat insects. Chipmunks hibernate in winter. But, unlike bears, they wake up every two days to refresh themselves. They do this by hoarding in their burrows from the fall. One chipmunk can cram up to 6 kilograms of seeds, nuts and mushrooms in its den.
What are harmful chipmunks?
Chipmunk can not do much harm to the garden. It is a misconception that he eats root crops. Certainly, the chipmunk digs burrows, but even a whole family of chipmunks can’t dig the entire garden-garden. Such a neighbor, even if he appears on the property, will be more likely to snatch food from the bowls of domestic animals. He will gladly eat grains together with chickens or seeds and groats from bird’s feeder.
On the other hand, the chipmunk is omnivorous. If he lacks food in nature, he will gladly borrow it from the garden. Cucumbers, zucchini, as well as peas and sunflowers may suffer. One more delicacy for chipmunks is cherry. They gather it while still green. They use it as a whole, together with the bone.
It looks cute and harmless. But if you try to catch it, it may bite. It is impossible to tell from its appearance whether it is sick or not. According to observations, the harm from these animals to farmers and gardeners on the national scale is minimal. But if they settled on a plot, got offspring, it can already disturb people.
Preventive measures
It is more humane not to fight chipmunks, but not to allow them into their territory. The easiest and most reliable way is a mesh fence around the perimeter of the site. If the mesh mesh will not be more than 6 cm, the rodent will not be able to break through it. To avoid digging, the same mesh can be deepened on 15-25 cm.
Mesh should be used to cover all potential points of entry of rodents into the house – vents, basement windows and openings.
Chipmunk will visit the house with pleasure, if he has such an opportunity. Chipmunks do not like open spaces. If you constantly mow the grass on the property, chipmunks will be uncomfortable and unlikely to stay for long.
Most often, chipmunks are afraid of people. It has been noticed that dachas, where people live all summer, are less exposed to attacks of striped rodents than those, where the owners appear only on weekends and holidays.
Repellents
There are a variety of ways to scare away animals.
1. Cats and dogs
Cats and dogs can be the best defenders of an area. As a rule, rodents avoid even the smell of these animals that mark the territory. Dachshunds, as burrowing animals, manage to hunt chipmunks as well as mice voles. Let alone cats.
2. Capsicum sprays
If you don’t have pets, you can use other repellents. For example, sprays with capsicin. This substance makes hot peppers and its smell can scare away anyone. The spray is sprayed on the fence tree trunks, the foundation of the house.
3. Rodent spray
In stores for gardeners today you can find rodent sprays with a variety of components. It can be castor oil, predator urine, and tar smell. It is necessary to take into account that all sprays are weathered with time. It is necessary to repeat the treatment periodically. And it must be done after the rain.
4. Naphthalene balls
The traditional method of rodent control is mothballs. They are placed both along the perimeter of the site and around the house, in the house itself and even in the attic. If there is a chipmunk’s burrow on the plot, it is also worth placing near it. The smell of naphthalene does not kill, but scares away the animals. It makes them go away even from their settled place.
5. Plants
You can scare off chipmunks with the help of flowers – daffodils. Both their smell and the taste of the bulbs for some reason do not like rodents. By planting these flowers among other bulbous plants, you can scare the chipmunks away from the whole area with future flowers.
Traps
Chipmunks are no larger than a rat. Therefore, all rodent traps you can buy can be used to catch them. Most traps are humane. They simply lock the animal inside without harming it. For bait, scatter nuts (such as peanuts) or sunflower seeds around the trap.
After catching the chipmunks should be taken far enough away from the site – 8-10 km, so that they will not return. There is also inhuman trap – a bucket with water. If a plank is put to it, on which a chipmunk can get to the rim of the bucket, and a bait is put on it, the chipmunk will drown after falling into the bucket.
Chipmunks, like squirrels, look very cute. One gets the urge to feed or tame them. If they do not cause much harm to the vegetable garden, you can do so. But we must remember that they can carry very dangerous to humans diseases. If chipmunks ravage the garden, you should try to block their access to the plot, scare them away with a pungent smell.
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