Diego, Mizuki, Robin
all Helpx workers doing a great job

Diego clening the fence and putting netting on top

the netting installed on one section. several refinements have been made since then

More about keeping the animals out. This is an obsession of mine now as to how to keep the animals out of our orchards. It is been raining a lot lately and I think this has taken the pressure of our orchard. But one or two wallabies getting into the orchard can do a lot of damage. Young trees particularly seem to be targets and strangely not the young suckers on older trees. Once the trees harden up then they are able to survive wallaby attacks but then the possums can still denude them of all leaves but again strangely leaving the fruit so they will die. But generally possums start their havoc at the end of the rows where the damage is very visible and we can do something about it.

So it is the wallabies that you really have to get under control. In the top orchard which is some way from the house I think these animals believe they can behave in an uninterrupted manner. The plan now is to put a barb wire as a top wire and another one just above the 300ml netting which follows the ground. Then I will put in strips of bird netting which can be easily stretched between these two barb wires and the barbs in fact will hold it in position. (pictures above)

We have tested the prototype and whilst it has worked to an extent the determination of the animals when getting out has caused some damage. We now have modified the procedure and put netting on both sides of the wire so that the animals whether going in or out still have to push the netting against the wire and hence then will back off without getting caught.

We have also put a radio on each night which seems to warn the roos that there could be people about. And finally we go shooting every night. All of these measures have gradually made the roos back out of the orchard. I might add that the dogs like hunting in this paddock now that the roos that do get in are more constrained. However they won’t go near the fence and sometimes the roos can still make there escape.

Will update this info as we do more trials.