DOES ANYONE HAVE ANY TRICKS TO KEEP WILD LIFE AWAY FROM YOUR MOST PRIZED FIGS?
I KNOW TO USE BIRD NETTING AND A FAKE OWL OR SNAKE. DO ANY OF THESE WORK?
I HAVE A VERY LARGE MAGNOLIA TREE AND IT SEEMS TO HAVE LOTS OF SQUIRRELS IN IT. IS THERE ANY WAY TO KEEP THEM AWAY?

Squirrels aren't easily kept away from foods they like. The only sure-fire way I know of is to get rid of the squirrels. 

A .22 rifle and a lot of bullets! Short rounds are very quiet :)

Just One Bite bars hung and wired into basket   hang in your tree     works for me

Bowl buried in ground under tree. Fill half way with bleach. Smell keeps most wild life away.

Tom Cat bait works wonders for rodents against figs. Good luck.

[QUOTE=FigWhisperer]Tom Cat bait works wonders for rodents against figs. Good luck.[/QUOTE]
Its not dog friendly. Guess bleach isn't either lol

no, I am serious, all rodents have to be eliminated from fig areas. They will never give up and you will not have any figs left to eat.

Its easy to protect your figs.  No need to use POISONs and risk the environment and the wild life. 
Poisons find ways to spread around and pets might find it and get sick or die. 

To protect your figs bird nets work great, organza bags also work great for individual figs, bird scaring noise makers or loud modern music can work.

My strategy is primarily using companion plants and have many fig producing trees. 
Seems to have worked for years.  Never have had problems with birds or squirrels eating my figs.  The birds do like the grapes, elderberries, berries on the wild bush berries ....  The birds are so busy eating those fruits they don't bother the figs.  The squirrels are happy with the walnut trees and don't come down to check the figs.

During the fall when other fruits run out I may get an occasional bird visit.  In general birds do not appear to recognize the figs as food in my area. 
There are families of sparrows and finch that live in and around the in ground figs and very occasionally do they take a bite.  I have enough fig trees so there is plenty for everyone even if they did. 
Robins, black birds, bluejays, mocking birds ... have not attacked my figs.  I can't explain it I think they don't recognize figs as food.

For the rare figs that I absolutely don't want to risk and want to leave until they are fully ripe. I put organza bags on and that has worked great for me.

Enjoy your figs and appreciate the wildlife.

Please don't poison.  I find a Hatsan 95 in .22 caliber, or similar, a very effective squirrel control solution.

Pino,

You may appreciate squirrels up there where you live. Here in California squirrels are the #1 carrier of bubonic plague. The number of cases is small. California has just a few so far this year, but that's because the department of health knocks back the squirrel population with poison when plague starts to rise.

Some of the more progressive communities try to appreciate wildlife. There are experiments with bait stations that dust squirrels with flea powder. There is birth control for squirrels. But in the end, these measures are too expensive for any but the wealthiest communities.

Blake
This discussion was only about keeping wildlife away from figs.  Squirrels were identified as a threat to the figs and various methods were discussed to get rid of them.
I have several 60' walnut trees and there are countless squirrels and they don't leave me many walnuts.  They eat them and drop the empty shells on passerbys..lol 
But in all the years I have never had a squirrel attempt to eat a fig or visit my fig trees that are less than 50' away.  I don't think squirrels are a threat to figs.  At least not Canadian squirrels.

Chipmunks are a different story. 
They also don't know or eat figs but they are forever searching for places to bury nuts in the fall and to dig up where they buried them in the spring.  Thanks to the chipmunks I have over a dozen walnut seedlings sprouting in my fig pots that I discovered when I up potted.  I found by moving the pots to the other side of the house solved the problem with the chipmunk.

One major issue often overlooked is that if you get rid of a pest before no time another one will move in.  Best is to solve the source of the problem.

Pino, Where I live in California , the organza bags do not work at all, the bird netting works for about 2 initial weeks. It is all because of the squirrels. The numbers run between 100s to 1000s in a given urban neighborhood. Keeping a dog in your yard around the clock helps but not everybody can do it. This is a real issue and is hard to deal with. Needless to say that the raccoons at night are frequent when the figs are getting ripe.

I say poison them darn tree rats.
God will have to find a way around this to forgive me.

This thread is a bit old, but I wanted to share an idea for future reference.  I've found bird netting draped over a tree alone to be hard to use and squirrels get tangled up and die in mine which makes for a nasty removal.  I'm thinking this fruit cage might be a good alternative:

http://www.agriframes.co.uk/domed-roof-fruit-cage.html?source=webgains&siteid=43437&ref_src=wbgns

[QUOTE]no, I am serious, all rodents have to be eliminated from fig areas.[/QUOTE]

Heil Figler!!!

[QUOTE=hoosierbanana]

Heil Figler!!![/QUOTE] Hahaha, well, you can serve Squirrel BBQ with glazed Figs.
It's either your figs or squirrels. This way you can have them both.

My young daughter came in the house this last weekend, telling me that she saw a squirrel in our largest fig tree. She excitedly asked, "can we have squirrel stew now!". She means gumbo, but it amounts to the same thing.... I had told her that any tree rats that got into our figs would end up in the cooking pot....

My solution matches a suggestion above. A high velocity .22 pellet gun that is very quite and accurate. We don't actually eat squirrels that were killed in the heat of summer. But I might have to dig some out of the freezer and try making a fig sauce for a little irony, or just make the gumbo and keep my daughter happy.


CliffH

Oh, OK well "Frank Q." I hope you go around and tell all of the neighbors that you are setting out poison illegally, and that their pets might get poisoned and they will probably find dead animals on their properties. See how much they care about your figs.

[QUOTE=greenfig]Keeping a dog in your yard around the clock helps but not everybody can do it. This is a real issue and is hard to deal with. Needless to say that the raccoons at night are frequent when the figs are getting ripe. [/QUOTE]

Most dogs that live in a yard 24/7 are pretty miserable and many end up escaping (I see them all at the shelter I work at!)

A semi feral "barn cat" is ideal. They would rather be outside and are more active during the night. Their barking also won't drive neighbors crazy.

[QUOTE=ohjustaguy]

Most dogs that live in a yard 24/7 are pretty miserable and many end up escaping (I see them all at the shelter I work at!)

A semi feral "barn cat" is ideal. They would rather be outside and are more active during the night. Their barking also won't drive neighbors crazy.[/QUOTE]

+1 on the cat as a solution.  I had a rodent problem because a compost pile got out of control.  Neighbors 'outside' cat started hanging out in my yard and in about a week, no more signs of vermin.  (and I was raised a dog person)

There's a school of thought that the birds go after fruit because of the water content rather than a food source.  To reduce bird attacks, one just needs to add sources of water.  Anyone have any experience with this?  

@ohjustaguy - nice blog, especially the projects section

Hi,
In my garden, they have all the water they want and they still peck on the figs...
Of course, the trees provide a hide too ...

Plant a perimeter of mint around your trees or if you have mint plants pick a cup of leaves, blend them in a blender and ad to a gallon of water and spray the water onto the plants. You may have to spray often if you have frequent rains. I just plant the stuff around anywhere I don't want squirrels, chipmunks or mice.

This Japanese water feature literally rocks — to scare hungry critters away from your garden

I was going out to the car late last night. The previous night and early morning before we had lost a bunch of figs to some critter. So for the heck of it, I took a flashlight and shined it on our large fig tree while I was outside. Sure enough, I saw a pair of eyes shining back at me. On closer inspection there were two young possums helping themselves to all our figs!

I am happy to report that they are both now permanently visiting their possum ancestors. A possum, due to health reasons and others, is one animal that we will always kill on sight if found in our yard. Being in our fig tree just made the decision that much easier.

Hopefully now we can get the rest of our figs, sharing only a few with the birds....

In the land of ticks and Lyme disease, opposums are always welcomed. In one season, one opposum can eat thousands of Lyme carrying, Rocky Mountain fever spreading nasty little buggers. They're literally tick vacuums. And with tick populations exploding everywhere it's something you think about when you're picking 20+ ticks off each dog after a 20min hike.....As much as I love my figs I'd happily share with an opposum or 2