FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

I live in the woods and for some reason I'm seeing a lot more squirrels around this spring, probably because we had so many more acorns than usual dropping last fall. It's almost time to put my CP's back outside now but I don't want to risk having them dug up or eaten since I've had squirrel damage on other things before. I wanted to build some kind of cage to cover them, but I'm not sure which design to use so I'd appreciate some tips from other people who've had the same problem. (And please don't suggest just shooting the squirrels because gunfire is not allowed in my neighborhood and I can't possibly be outside 24/7 with a gun anyway. There must be dozens or hundreds of them in the woods near my house so they just keep coming and coming, pretty much like zombies. Hmm, maybe that's why one of my neighbor's WiFi networks is called "ZombieSafeHouse.")

So would chicken wire be better to use than hardware cloth? Will rain falling through either wash any metal down into the soil and raise the TDS? I wanted to make something that would be easy to remove when I need to water the plants and that wouldn't be too ugly to look at the rest of the time. If you have any pictures of your cages that have stopped squirrel attacks, that would be a great help. Thanks!

Leo756 wrote:So would chicken wire be better to use than hardware cloth?

I used chicken wire when I made my squirrel cage and that worked well.

Leo756 wrote:Will rain falling through either wash any metal down into the soil and raise the TDS?

Nope!

Leo756 wrote:I wanted to make something that would be easy to remove when I need to water the plants and that wouldn't be too ugly to look at the rest of the time. If you have any pictures of your cages that have stopped squirrel attacks, that would be a great help.

There may be some photos of my squirrel cage somewhere on the forums. The photos would be from 2008 or 2009. I just looked and couldn't find any though.

Basically it was a cage with no bottom that I just sat over my plants. 1" x 2" boards were used for the frame and chicken wire wrapped around it. It was easy to pick up and lift off when it was time to water. Some more information here:
http://www.flytrapcare.com/phpBB3/post1 ... ml#p169716

Here's a link to a post showing what I made. http://www.flytrapcare.com/phpBB3/not-a ... 15616.html

Chicken wire would be good because it will still easily let bugs through. I am planning to build a cage for my rectangular planter. It's about 8" deep so and has a watering tube in 1 corner. So I'm planning to put tubes in the other 3 corners then build a cage with posts (just gonna use cheap stake posts) that go down into the tubes and wrap the exposed part in chicken wire and staple it down. That way I should be able to just easily slide the whole cage off when I want. I was considering putting a door in it, but this should be easy and it will give me full access to the plants. I'll let you know how it goes.

Thanks, Matt, markus and xr280xr. Your design, markus, is similar to what I was thinking of building. (I'm not very much of a carpenter either.) I'm going to be keeping my plants on a square patio table on my deck so fortunately I won't need to build any legs like you did. I just need some kind of canopy over them to keep the squirrels out. I just can't decide if I should use chicken wire or hardware cloth. Seems like hardware cloth would be thicker and sturdier but it would also make it heavier to lift on and off too. I guess maybe I could try to make the lid hinged on top or maybe a swinging door on one side. So how large do you think the holes should be to still allow plenty of bugs to get in? My Jaws plant actually caught a small grasshopper (over an inch long) last year so I sure don't want to deprive them of any food!

Just thought of something else... Should I use pressure-treated lumber, or not? I sure don't want it to rot and fall apart from the weather, but it seems to defeat the whole purpose if some kind of strong chemical they use for pressure treating might wash down into the soil from the rain and kill my plants.

Leo756 wrote:Should I use pressure-treated lumber, or not?

It depends on how long you'd like it to last and how hard it is to make. I went the inexpensive route with the smallest, cheapest lumber I could find and that worked fine. Would have lasted several years probably (though I moved after a year and left it behind). And considering it only took about 30 to 45 minutes to make, I probably wouldn't have used nicer lumber. If it had fallen apart, I would either have fixed it or built a new one.

I don't imagine you'd be using anywhere near enough wood to have to worry about the chemicals. Use pressure treated to save yourself having to rebuild this every few years.

If there is a significant price difference though, go with the cheaper wood like Matt said. Money saved is money to buy more plants.

Chipi3s wrote:You need to buy your self a TRIFID!!!!

Hmm, I never have seen that movie. NetFlix, here I come... Guess I should get "Little Shop of Horrors" and "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" while I'm at it and treat myself to a little mini-movie-marathon. Nah, on second thought, I think I'll leave out that last one. I like to sleep at night!