porupine woes

[mberryrfd]

Not sure where to post this so I will post it here.
We have a orchard that was almost dead when we moved in.Some of the trees appear to have died while they were budding some time in the past.
We have been watering them regularly and some are coming back very nice and are full of blooms and starting to get leaves.
I have noticed some of the new growth has had the bark chewed off at ground level. I at first that those !@&^ rabbits. But today I notced that some of the limbs looked stripped of the new leaves.
which means more than likely the porcupines are getting to them.
Any idea how to keep them out of the orchard

[Hoop]

I have never heard of porcupines eating apple trees. But then I have never lived in New Mexico either. Just today I saw a porcupine in an aspen tree, maybe 40 feet above the ground, doing what porcupines do......eat bark.
Porcupines are easily disposed of with a shotgun or .22. They generally move slowly, if at all. In fact, one can walk up to one with a baseball bat type club, and dispatch the animal with a blow to the snout.

You can take a chance on setting out traps with rock salt, but this could lend itself to unintended consequences. A couple of skunks could saunter in to the traps. This is not a good situation as one might expect. Dispatching the skunk will result in the skunk managing to get off as least a couple of discharges, even as it shudders with the dying quivers.

I suggest keeping an close eye on the orchard and dispatching the porcupines via lead poisoning.

[mberryrfd]

Yea kinda what I was thinking. and we would catch a skunk they are every where, smell them as road kill daily. Guess I will have to make nightly rounds through the trees.

[MELOC]

i had ground hogs do that to peach trees before.