Now that my figs are starting to ripen I have discovered I have a thief on the property that is taking green figs ripened enough to be showing a medium blush of color. Ripening figs are disappearing up to a shoulder high level.  In some cases I can see where a small portion of the stem has been left behind.

Rounding up the usual list of suspects inhabiting the area we have a panther and a bear, deer, pigs, raccoons, possums along with squirrels, chipmunks birds and mice. The big question is what to do. My trees/bushes are almost too big to net and certainly will be in another year or two. Putting a fence around them high enough to deter a deer (8'?) is guaranteed to produce a grumpy hubby who has to mow around the figs and is sure to mean that I have to take it down and put it back up when he wants to mow.  A third idea is to triple or quadruple my production and hope that my thief does not have too many relatives in the area.

Anybody out there have other suggestions I might consider or animals on the list that are known not to like figs that can be eliminated?  Have enough problems with one cat that likes to sleep in fig pots. I now have a 3' Alma which was slept upon 4 weeks ago and whose trunk was split off almost entirely just above soil level. I re positioned it, wrapped it with vet wrap (stretchable self adhesive breathable gauze bandage used to bandage horse legs). Fortunately the tree is recovering without a wilted leaf and continues to leaf out at the same rate as those not damaged (dormant bare root plant purchased from a vendor in TX after reviewing some of the comments about the vendor on F4F...thanks everyone...they are great buys).

Everything likes figs. Netting is still the easiest answer. Prune the trees to keep the to a nettable size.

Marianna,

If you are in the south it could be roof rats...they love fruit.  They are so unlike the northern rats and you don't even know they around half the time.  If a coon or possum was climbing up taking figs shoulder high you would see leaves and things on the ground they knocked off but the fruit rats leave no sign except missing figs.  

Build a greenhouse and make it bear proof.  No grass to mow and hubby is even happier.

OK, this will seem gross, but it does work!  Have your hubby or handyman, whichever is willing, go pee on the fig tree and the surrounding ground.  Mark the territory.  Or, if he is a shy guy, have him pee in a bucket, soak rags in there and hang them on the tree.

This will discourage a ton of animals!  How do I know?  We have this apple tree with amazingly crisp, juicy wonderful apples waay down on the property, and the apples that were ripening all had bite marks (tests for ripeness from the critters,) so JD went down there unwillingly, and left his mark!  A bounty of untouched apples was ours, and they are still (they were legion) in both fridges waiting for me to make pies and cobblers.

Just wash the fruit good!  LOL!

Suzi

Hi Marianna. You need to get two dogs , like we did, to guard the fig. They scare away the critters at night.

Suzi,

     Wash the apples before consuming.

Marianna,

     My guess is deer. They have a browsing range that stops around shoulder height.  Just as  a test, try an Irish soap solution sprayed every evening and see what happens.

Elizabeth,

    When I was a kid, we had a donkey that took care of visitors. Now I have three little dachsies that guard the yard.

I have had good success keeping deer away with a single strand electric fence about 30 inches high.  The one that I use is solar powered and not very hot.  Just hot enough to let them know their not welcome.  Also its easy to mow under.

Good luck

Thanks for all the suggestions. We do live in the south and have something known locally as "meadow rats". The grow to the size of a small rabbit or half the size of my cats. No leaves on the ground so probably not raccoons or possums. Do have an electric fence on one side of the figs to keep horses in. The deer are jumping these fences daily so fencing is probably not going to be an effective solution. Used human hair spread around the garden to discourage deer up north. Easy to get clippings from the barber shop and spread around. Hubby claiming the territory is also a possibility. Along the same line would emptying cat pans around the base of the fig trees be a potential solution? Know that solution worked for encouraging ground hogs living around my garden up north to relocate and find other sources of food than my lettuces. Also since our soil is so acid, might emptying the cat pans around the plants have a beneficial effect by raising soil ph?

Marianna,

That does not sound like roof rats.  The roof rats are pretty small and black usually.  They are much smaller and slimmer than Norwegian rats those in the north are use to and their eating patterns are very different as well.  

Think its deer. The damage done today was not subtle....many figs were bitten off at the neck...a nice clean bite. Looked like some had been bitten deeply and then pulled off the tree leaving a bit of skin still hanging on the underside. Have been growing my figs in bush form because I thought it made them less susceptible to cold weather damage since they are in ground. May have to rethink that and hope that getting more figs maturing above browsing height will help save more for me. I am not going to be able to solve the whole deer problem since there is a lot of undeveloped land and hay fields between me and a series of National Forest Land and Wildlife Management areas which ring us. Also the 'Forever Wild' corridor the US Corps of Engineers maintains along the river banks and around the edge of the lake are interstate roadways for wildlife. As the first house on the peninsula, its why I have an occasional juvenile bear and an old roving Panther and feral pigs grace the premises in what would normally be considered the edge of suburbia.  I can deter wildlife to some degree and I can probably grow enough that their left overs will meet my needs. This sort of explains the plums, peaches and apricots which seemed to disappear too just as they were ripening.

If it's deer you can usually tell by the tracks they leave.  It does sound like deer.  Would panther go for fruit???  Maybe they are interested in the animal that is eating your figs!

All my fruiting plants are surrounded by a heavy layer of wood chip and grass so no chance for prints.  Grass around the earliest ripening looks like something has walked a circle around it and I don't think my periodic trips around the tree to check on ripening can account for what I am seeing.  Has to be either deer or pigs.   I am not seeing any rooting in the mulch underneath which is full of juicy worms so I am leaning toward it being deer rather than pigs.  Panther only visits two or three times for a few days each year.  Think its probably a male checking up on the presence of females in the area.  He is usually spotted drinking from the lake. Can tell when he is around as the horses go to the middle of the pasture where they have a clear view of 360 degrees around them and assume a defensive position (side by side with one facing N and one facing S so there are teeth and hooves to defend from either direction) instead of retiring to the running shed where they would normally spend the night. If horses don't like big cats and one of our horses will not even walk past a large rag doll, I am sort of wondering if deer are as wary. If so, a few piles of used cat litter may work as a deterrent. Will hang a couple of knee high nylons filled with some human hair to see if that helps too. Meanwhile, I am starting soil preparation getting ready to put in another row of figs and plums. Final solution may be just having enough to share and putting the least interesting but most productive varieties where they are most easily accessed. One of the appeals of this area is all the wildlife but it can be a nuisance.

Marianna,

     I thought it might be deer. Give the Irish Spring soap solution at try.

Thanks will try the soap solution. Should be a double duty solution too, doesn't a mild solution of soap kill insects as well?

It can, and if not, at least they'll be clean and smell good.

Irish Spring?   (Manly, yes, but she likes it too).

Mike

How about this? Sounds like it does everything...only thing I need now is a nutria and an elk.  http://www.plantskydd.com/

I live in a very rural area. Last year, the deer were chomping my garden. I strung a couple lines of fishing line. I heard it's the equivalent of us running into a spider web in the dark. They don't like it. I didn't have any more problems.

Jeff, thanks. I am going to give it a try. As of yesterday, all fruit larger than a shooter marble had been removed from both of my mature Celestes. We have pretty long growing season so if I can stop the depredation, I may still get a few main crop figs for us. Whatever it is, has turned its attention to the mature Brunswick/Magnolias which are ripening now. Husband thinks it is more likely a bear rather than deer because of the amount of grass trampled around the trees and that fruit was taken on head high limbs as well. Going to see if anyone we know has a game camera and perhaps we can get a recording of the culprit.  If it is indeed a bear, I may be able to get DNR to remove it as a nuisance bear. This is a lakeside community with lots of summer homes so bears should not be normal occurrences. I am pretty determined to get figs for me so I am going to prune my producing bushes/trees into tree form with the hope that more of my production can be kept out of reach. My auxiliary strategy will be to acquire a bunch of inexpensive unknowns or pedestrian varieties to plant in areas around the perimeter of my orchard. The varieties don't have to be tasty to me, they just have to be acceptable to 4-legged thieves. Meanwhile I will try to make my orchard as uninviting as possible. I started planting on the perimeter of my growing area so as I add more trees, the smaller trees will always be surrounded by trees with less accessible production.  I will still be able to do bush form when my trees are tender and be able to bury the smallest in winter and then I can train them to tree form when stems are less likely to die back in winter. Although most of my fruit has been poached, a 4-5 week old kitten showed up under a gardenia bush yesterday morning. Sure hope my thief has 4 legs and is not trading kittens for figs!

Jeff,

   That's a nice idea. I am going to try it on my apples and  stone fruit.