slo’s FRIDAY 10/7 poll - Critters In Your Yard

[slo]

Do you get critters in your yard?
If yes….which ones?
(multiple choice - birds are not included - everyone gets those)



For Me…..Yes, and lately we’ve had more visitors than normal. I think it’s because our Sophie’s scent has now dissipated (our Yorkie - she passed away in July) and now the critters are here every night. Every morning I look at the security cameras to see what was going on while we were sleeping - it’s very entertaining sometimes - LOL! We live next to a forest and we’ve seen most critters, but luckily not all have been in our yard - yet! I won’t be happy when I start finding coyotes in our yard, hopefully they’ll continue staying in the forest and stay out of our yard. (We do have a wood security fence around our yard, but critters don’t care, if they want to come in then they’re coming in)

Our normal visitors are….deer, raccoons, opossums, squirrels, chipmunks, snakes (one just scared the crap out of me the other day), mice and rabbits

We had a big fat groundhog once - he was pretty cool.

In the forest we’ve also seen coyotes and foxes.
The one thing we don’t have are skunks - thank God!

The below pictures are from our yard

Opossum - I am not a fan of this critter. One fell in our window well once and it thrashed so hard we thought it was going to break the window and get in the house. We did have a cover over the window well, but it came lose without us knowing it.


Ugghhhh……raccoons
These have been in our attic once - that is not fun. Very expensive to get them out and stressful because time is of the essence. They need to be removed before they have their babies, because babies are born blind and can crawl to the edge of the attic, fall down the wall, die and stink up the house. Then you need to try and find it by tearing up you wall. I could go on and on about what happened with us, but I don’t have time to type it - not a good memory.


This was a surprise to see. We have lots and lots of deer, but this is the first time since we’ve had these cameras that I’ve seen one on the driveway. These don’t bother us - they used to eat my impatients, so I stopped planting them. They leave all my other flowers alone.

 

[PollyannaMom]

We regularly see squirrels, chipmunks, bunnies, and woodchucks. We have occasionally seen foxes in the yard, and a coyote once or twice near the end of the road. I also suspect raccoons due to droppings, but haven't actually seen them.

 

[soccerdad72]

We have deer that eat our shrubs and I’ve seen raccoons and coyotes on our Ring at night. The most annoying critters we get, though, are the voles that dig up our yard

 

[WDWEPCOT]

I win the poll ! I got ALL and then some and I don’t live out in the country !! ❤
Deer / I poo scoop that along with my dog poo
My dog gets a special shot at vet because of the deer
Rabbits - we started with 6 - down to 1 - Coyote have picked them off
The one I’m waiting for that is within 10 miles of my house is a bear I have not seen one yet -
But anything else known for my state - I have - 5 turkeys last week ! A rooster I’d like to shoot - he never shuts up
A skunk I don’t want to see but let me know hey I’m here - ugh
Here’s one not on the list - bobcat / don’t want to see him again - ah nope !
I dread taking my dog out at night - the deer are aggressive - plus the coyote plus that bobcat - the bats - the 4 owls / it’s not fun !
Tons of wildlife around me !!

 

[bobbiwoz]

Mice have gotten into our shed, so, they must have been in the yard! We have had skunks on our street, and when we paid to have safe traps to catch the skunk, it caught a possum on the front lawn.

We have a very small property.

 

[Dan Murphy]

Raccoons, skunks, opossum, red fox, coyote, squirrels, rabbits, chipmunks and peoples' cats.

 

[footballmouse]

I have moles! Ruined my backyard. I was seeing a snake when I cut the grass back in the spring but my son sprayed some snake deterrent and it's been working so far.

 

[Stratman50th]

Other...

 

[easyas123]

We get all of the animals listed on the poll.

 

[BrianL]

I have two big pecan trees, so tehre are some fat & happy squirrels hanging around. I don't mind as long as they don't get in the attic, which they did once. I also get frogs because of the pool. There are some small snakes, which is common anywhere there is grass. I once had a really big owl hanging around - he was cool!

 

[fly girl]

We have a LOT of critters. Woods behind us so it is to be expected.

Dh made burgers last night, as soon he took the cover off the grill I hear an expletive close to darn. Raccoon got into the drip tray ... again. So annoying.

Squirrels, rabbits, and chipmunks a plenty. They keep our indoor cat always staring our the window. We had an albino squirrel that was really cool to watch. Haven't seen it lately, I don't know the lifespan of a squirrel so I wonder if it is still alive.

Deer, very frequent. When we were out of town over the summer I put all of my outdoor potted plants by the walk out basement so my cat sitter could easily take the hose to water them. The deer loved my hibiscus tree. Never made a full recovery.

Snakes and mice, seen them in the shed and in our garage. Our cat got the mouse, good boy! The snake was a rat snake, ugly but harmless. We have corn, milk and garter snakes around here. I am fine with snakes, they eat the field mice and I don't like mice! Vile rodents full of disease. Eat away, Mr. Snake!

We also have a little turtle that comes out of the woods and around our house in the summer. Usually only see the guy 3-4 times a year. He's so cute. I always look forward to seeing him.

I have heard coyotes, especially during mating season, but never saw one in my yard. I know the neighborhood had some foxes too, still yet to see one.

Least favorite, moles. Man, those guys are destructive. We had some traps up and made sure our lawn was not grub infested, but they have been rampant in our large subdivision. I hear people weekly complaining about them. Ugh.

 

[scbruno]

So far we have seen all but the mice and rats on the poll. We do get the folks dogs from the property behind us. we have a buffer we have not cleared for privacy, so they wait at the gate for us to let them in to visit. the paly with my dog. we call them to let them know the dogs are on their way home.

 

[Wood Nymph]

We live in a suburb of Chicago, just 15 miles from downtown, and we have an amazing collection of animals. Foxes, skunks, racoons, coyote, rabbits, chipmunks and mice
There are deer nearby, too.

 

[Kitty 34]

Many deer, squirrels, possums, raccoons, turkeys, fox , skunks, rabbits, chipmunks, "other" rodents and occasional dog or cat from a neighbor. The woods are about four feet from the back of our house.

 

[mrodgers]

Use to be in the country, so you're missing bear, bobcat, mountain lion. Add those and I would have still marked all the choices.

Back in the town I grew up in, not by choice, it's just squirrels and chipmunks. Those were pretty rare out in the country actually, too many predators. More in civilization though, they are everywhere.

 

[luvnwdwgal]

We get all of them except rats. We’re rural and surrounded by woods. We can look out our front window and see herds of deer. We hear coyotes crying at night. It’s so eerie sounding cause they sound like babies crying. Just the other day there was a snake by the back step and a wild Turkey in the front yard. We have an old house so always get mice.

 

[disneychrista]

Various birds are all the wild critters I see. We also have a few cats that hang out.

 

[Moliphino]

All of the above, pretty much. I don't think we have rats around, but definitely mice.

For a while we were getting deer every day, that has lessened since I got my dog. My dog hates the deer and barks like a complete lunatic at them. They eat all the apples off our trees.
Saw a skunk digging around in the backyard at night a few times, but thankfully not since getting the dog. I would not want to surprise one when taking her out to potty at night.
Squirrels and chipmunks are a daily occurrence.
Rabbits we see on occasion.
Sometimes we get flocks of turkeys in the yard. More often we can hear them in the woods around the house.
The mice have made it into the house.
Garter snakes are sometimes in the grass.
We had a dead opossum directly in front of the house a little while back. Those smell awful!
We had a fox yelling in the backyard one night. I've seen one around the neighborhood lately, too.
We've heard coyotes yipping in the woods. My dog did not like that, she immediately wanted to go inside.

I've also found bits of dead chicken in my backyard (probably one of my neighbor's chickens, quite a few neighbors have them). I don't know what animal left that there.
My dog found a fairly large bone in the backyard yesterday. No idea what it was from or where it came from.

 

[ronandannette]

We live behind a row of 25ft. spruce trees and there are armies of squirrels everywhere. Noisy, messy and very destructive to my flower beds. I call them nasty little rat ******** and I hate them. We also had a skunk under the back porch steps the first year we were here but blessedly it moved on and we have t had one since.

 

[lynxstch]

We get deer, squirrels, and chipmunks. We used to get raccoons (in fact had a family of 3 living under one of our sheds for a summer) and possums, but thankfully haven't seen any of them lately. Had a big groundhog under our shed the first year we lived here, but got someone to trap it and take it away, before it did too much damage. We have also had, on 2 occasions, a big brown bear come through the yards out here, scared all the neighbors! We used to have vols (yes vols, not moles). The cats managed to scare them all away, finally.