It looks as it has been chewed on. How sure are you dear can't get to it?

Rina yes, something sure chewed on it, but it wasn't a deer. My back yard is deer proof. It's in the turquoise pot shown here:

There are squirrels, rats, and mice, raccoons, opossums, sparrows, mocking birds, red birds, etc. in the area, but what about an agave would interest any of them?

I do not know which animals - birds would like it. It looks to me as it could be larger animal - but who knows! I have rabbits chewing some of my unprotected shrubs down so much, it is hard to believe rabbit would be capable of!

Did you noticed right away, or could it be few days of damage?

Birds and other critters supposedly will attack plants if they are thirsty - I believe that and make sure there are always few bird baths with water available. They attack it for moisture, not as a food. Succulents are able to store lots of water. Is it very dry in your location? I know rats do it, and possibly any of what you named - if thirsty enough.

BTW, I really like your painted trees-branches...:)

Could it be possible some bird is shredding the leaves and pulling out the fibers for nest construction? Our birds have been dismantling all the coir-lined hanging baskets.

Rina, good question, but I have bird baths and several water bowls placed low around the yard for my ornate box turtles so there is no lack of water, however something has been destroying the Sempervivums for a couple of years now. But they are soft and chewable. Since water is available is it for food?

Annie, good guess, it could be birds, but before the fibers were exposed how would they know they were there?

Maybe it's birds that have been pecking the Sempervivums to death and they decided to play around with something else. I just wish I could catch whatever it is in the act to solve the mystery.

We have anoles and Texas spiny lizards, but they are insect eaters. Squirrels? It seems they just like to gnaw on stuff.

And who knows what goes on in the garden at night! Rats?

I keep hoping someone had seen similar damage and can provide some clues.

My vote is for rats! They are soooo destructive.

This happened to my Echeveria a couple nights ago.

Same thing happened to my beautiful Dudleya mound. This one hurts the most because it was so gorgeous with flowers all over. They ate the flower stalks too.

My Dudleya mound was full of these, but now it looks like the above pic. It’ll take yrs to look nice again. All it took was one night.

Baby Opalina

I put out traps about a month ago and got a handful of Ratatouille 🐀, but now they’re coming from my neighbor. I think I will use a chubby little succulent as a sacrificial lamb tonight and put traps around it. So frustrating😡!

It looks like deer to me. Are you sure that your yard is deer proof. I did not see 7' fence around your yard.

This poor agave was a good looking thing last year.

They even tagged this big one.

I need to plant another one there as a sacrificial agave so they leave the others alone.

Omar, Bob has a good appetite, but it doesn't include greens! LOL

Kara, it's gotta' be rats! Maybe a cardinal could do damage like that, but why would they?

When I was a kid growing up in San Antonio we never EVER had rats in the city. Quite a few years later we'd exclaim, "Was that grey streak I just saw a rat?"

Now they are everywhere all over town, getting in cars chewing cables, in old houses, and in my green house.. They reproduce so quickly I don't think anything, neither poison or trapping, will get rid of them nowadays ... sigh.

Mara true, I don't have an 8 ft fence, but there is so much foliage along the fence line they don't have a clear place to land. But even before all the plantings they never jumped my fence. Maybe it's because I've always had several dogs.

Lordy! As your photos show the bucks sure can do a lot of damage to agaves, cactus, and small trees,

We do not have rats out here. Just field mice. Your Rats sound like pack rats but I know they are not.

Mara, spoken messages are so much fun to try to figure out! Are your mice 'tired', 'fried' or 'friendly'?

You should keep a camera looking at that wireless, a remore wireless one. I once had a friend who had birds doing that to collect the fibers to build their nests. But, it's anyone's guess

Mike, that's a possibility. A wireless motion camera would be fun.

We do have to learn to live with wildlife these days, but so far I don't have armadillos, cut ants, or wild hogs, thank goodness.

Ragna I meant "FIELD" mice. LOL Auto spell strikes again.

I do have a armadillos that keeps flattening my compost pit. Wild hogs seem to stay in the ravine.

roselee

Can't tell how wide is the "green belt" you have next to your fence, but I was really surprised how far and high deer can jump.

Damage on your plant looks more than I would expect of cardinals, but who knows. My vote is deer or rat...but maybe something else is getting in there. I think only way to find out is to get a field camera. I remember when Kevin (ewwmayo) set up one on his roof-top terrace. He squirrel-proofed it, and yet they were still getting in and were damaging his succulents. He even posted video. It helped to identify the vulnerable spot, and fix it...

I have had deer clear my 6.5' fence. I leaned up pipes above it to make it higher.

I looked carefully at the chewed on agave this morning and see lots of loose, unconnected pieces of fiber so guess it's not a bird looking for nesting material.

I'm going with rats.

I've lived here over 30 years and have done extensive gardening in the back yard and would most certainly know if a deer ever visited. The dogs have flushed out raccoons, opposums, and skunks though, also squirrels of course.

Hmmmm, could be it's a one of those bushy tailed rats, especially now that Rina has mentioned their damage to Kevin's succulents!

I even had what we call a "Ring tail cat" here in Texas, take up residence for awhile under the store room.. They eat rodents. I didn't see any signs of rats for a long time after that.

I wish I could convince the neighbors not to kill 'rat snakes', but it seems they kill them first and ask questions later.

The Rock Rose blog used to talk about hispid cotton rats wrecking things in her Hill Country garden.

Also, there have been news articles from urban areas about the effect the closed businesses have had on rat populations. With no handy trash cans of fast food scraps or bins of restaurant debris available they're looking for new sources of food and even turning to cannibalism.

Yuck! I hope it's something else!