Coons can't climb up a trunk that has alluminum flashing stapled around it for about 30". For the vast majority of coons 24" is enough, starting at least a foot from the ground. I'm absolutely positive that this is a fail safe method for free standing trees with at least 3' of trunk before first branches. Well, 3.5' anyway.

I have electric poultry netting that I use to protect my flock of chickens. I know for sure that coons don't like the jolt. Ted

Harvestman,

Thanks for the info. My issue is that my trees are parallel to my fence line so even if I wrapped aluminum flashing around the trunk, they'd still be able to gain access to the tree via the fence.

I'm partial to the portable energizers as I don't need to run electricity to the back of my yard which would be a pain and an added cost.

Is there any reason why draping the tree with wiring would be an issue? The reviews I've seen have indicated having the wire in close proximity to vegetation would be an issue though I'm not sure why. Wish I had another fruit bearing tree to test this method out on. Oh well, there's always next year.

If anyone has tried a product like this for your tree, I'd appreciate any feedback you could provide. The amazon reviews indicated this was used to protect veggie gardens.

Thanks.

I didn't look up the product you described, but when you mentioned draping the wire around the tree, I would think that would run all the electricity into the ground and your batteries would soon go dead. I put an electric fence around my entire garden with wires 3 inches, 8 or 10", and about 2 1/2' off the ground. That saved my sweet corn. I also trapped a few coons one year. That might be necessary for those that have already acquired a taste for your produce. Maybe you could put a couple low wires like this either just outside of your other fence or attached to it. The main pain is keeping the bottom wire free of weeds and debris. Northwoodswis

The UC site below suggests doing exactly what you are thinking of, so I'm sure its worked for someone. I don't know enough about how these fences work to know whether shorting wires could be a problem when wrapped around a tree, and you should look into that. It may be necessary to get wire holders and run the wire off the bark. That site also mentions running an 8" wire as northwoods suggests, but with your fence nearby that may not work. You may be able to run another wire near the fence top so Mr. raccoon would hit it when he tried to come over.

Scott

Here is a link that might be useful: UC Davis link

I've been facing terrible squirrel pressure on my fruit trees this year and have lost all my peaches and most of my apples. I rather doubt that running electric wire through the tree will help, and think that you will have problems if the wire is touching the tree. I have found that squirrels (I don't yet have racoon problems) will tear apart both plastic sandwich bags and the more durable cloth fruit bags to get at the fruit. Netting does seem to help, however. I'm using the bird netting you get at Home Depot. I suspect the squirrels are worried about getting tangled in it. This works ok on smallish, slow growing trees, but with a peach tree you are going to have a lot of branches growing through the netting, and possibly a large tree to net to start with. If I had an enclosed yard (I don't), I'd look into a dog. If I lived in the country, I'd look into a rifle. Scott has mentioned Kania traps for squirrels; I don't know if they work for racoons, and there are of course issues of legality here. I await a brilliant solution to these problems for the backyard fruit grower.

The Kania traps are only for squirrels (or rats if you have them). I expect this wire on the tree method would work for both raccoons and squirrels, but I have too many trees to be able to test it on. An additional problem with shocking devices is you will surely shock yourself several times and its not very enjoyable.

Austransplant, did you tie the cloth bags to the tree limbs so they cannot run off with the bagged fruit? I found I only lost a couple when I did that since they didn't want to stay in the tree all day gnawing the bag, and they could not get it down whole because it was tied to the limb. But maybe your squirrel pressure is higher, I have always been shooting or trapping to some degree of success.

Scott

Scott,

Yes the bags were tied to the branches and the squirrels shredded the bottom of the bags while leaving them on the tree. A pity, since the bags were working well otherwise.

Hot wire would be grounded by a tree making them worthless. One of the issues of electric fence is when too many weeds touch it and send the current to the ground.

I like the constant current type electric fences. You can have the charger by your house and send the current (greatly reduced from 110) using good house wire (the gray stuff) so it actually cost less than a solar powered unit and works much better. One jolt a second or less may be good enough to stop coons but squirrels are likely to get over a wire without being zapped.

The squirrel needs to hit the hot wire and something grounding the current at the same time so it becomes a conduit. A grounded metal fence (something like 1" chicken wire) with electric wires closely running by it separated from the fence with insulators is the ticket. Wires should be spaced an inch or two from the fence.