Your property’s yard goes beyond aesthetics by offering you and your family a place to enjoy the outdoors. A quality greenspace can reduce your stress and promote higher levels of fitness.
Invasive opossums are one of the more common pestilent wildlife problems that yard owners face. Stay multiple steps ahead of the curve with our tips on how to keep opossums out of your yard.
Eliminate Food Sources
Opossums are omnivores that survive through consuming a wide variety of foods. This spectrum of food unfortunately includes your home’s garbage and your pet’s leftover meals. A sharp sense of smell and hearing allows opossums to seek out food sources. You’ll most likely run into an opossum at night, as this species becomes more active after sunset.
Homeowners can get a leg up on opossums by restricting their accessibility to outdoor food sources. Moving your pet’s food inside and using trash can locks can go a long way in your effort to keep opossums out of your yard. Compost bins are especially important to lock up, as these containers’ scraps are a prime opossum target.
Does your yard feature any fruit trees? Rotting fruit is an opossum’s best friend. You can decrease the likelihood of these unwanted visitors entering your yard by cleaning up any fallen and rotting fruit that lies around your yard’s fruit trees.
Chicken owners that keep their livestock outside have to take proper precautions to protect their animals from opossums. It’s vital that you seal off your chicken coop’s entry points and lock your chickens up at night. Opossums will break into a chicken coop, if they find an entrance, and eat your chickens.
How to Repel Opossums Using Scents
The market offers a wide range of repellents that deal with wild animals. You can apply chemical opossum repellents to your property’s flower beds, gardens, and structure bases. Chemical repellents often come in a powder form that contains predator urine smell.
This method is best utilized in conjunction with other practices on our list. Property owners can get the most out of what chemical repellents have to offer through frequent and highly concentrated applications.
Electronic repellents startle opossums, which often leads to a retreat. This form of repellent offers more consistent results that operate in an eco-friendly manner.
Here’s a rundown of the best places in your yard to integrate electronic repellents:
- Chicken coops
- Entryways
- Lawns
- Trees
- Barns and sheds
- Pools
- Compost bins
Windchimes and lawn lights can similarly scare yard opossums away.
Get Rid of Shelter
Property damage can indicate a nearby opossum nest. You can begin your search for opossum shelters in or near your yard with a flashlight to examine covered spaces, crevices, and holes. Opossums tend to bring nesting materials into an area that’s already covered. This behavior pattern stems from the fact that opossums are lower-on-the-food-chain animals that are looking for secure hiding spots.
Do your best to clear out:
- Hedges
- Thick shrubs
- Piles of leaves
- Stacks of wood
Unused garden equipment like pots and wheelbarrows can act as opossum shelters. Few things deter opossums like a tidy landscape.
You can reduce your yard’s opossum habitability by turning on extra lights. Opossums are a nocturnal species that come out at night. Exterior lights and floodlights can illuminate the areas of your yard that are most vulnerable to opossums.
It’s essential to focus on lighting critical areas of your yard that you’re looking to protect. Gardens, sheds, and garbage areas are three yard regions that can significantly benefit from exterior light support.
Seal Entry Points
Unsealed entry points can allow yard opossums to gain access to your home. Homeowners can keep these areas and hazards in mind when looking for areas of their property that need sealing:
- Open holes and gaps
- Chimneys
- Vents
Open holes allow opossums to damage homes, barns, and chicken coops. You can limit opossum access points by trimming branches, fixing broken vents, and sealing foundation cracks. You might be wondering how cutting your tree branches will help deter opossums. These wild animals can climb tree branches and jump onto a house’s chimney.
Homeowners mustn’t overlook pet doors as a possible opossum point of entry.
Following opossum droppings or spotting opossums traveling in your yard at night can lead you toward an entry point that needs sealing. Property owners need to seal entry points with hard substances. Opossums can easily rip up softer sealing materials with their sharp claws.
Are you looking for a professional opossum removal service in the Los Angeles area?
Call Animal Capture Wildlife Control for Professional Opossum Removal
Professional opossum removal in the Los Angeles area starts with Animal Capture Wildlife Control. We specialize in solving your opossum issues by offering you an ethical and stress-free removal process.
It’s best to act fast when you’re looking to solve an opossum problem. Delays in scheduling a professional opossum removal assistance can lead to these wild animals damaging your home’s exterior and invading your house.
Animal Capture Wildlife Control works to remove opossums and keep them out for good. Our professional services include sealing methods that help you avoid future opossum run-ins.
While opossums don’t pose a large threat to humans, you can protect yourself from the diseases that this species carries and save yourself mountains of stress by letting Animal Capture Wildlife Control handle your opossum removal process.
Head over to our site’s About page to view all of the Los Angeles areas that we currently serve.
Call Animal Capture Wildlife Control today at 310-551-0901 for the expert opossum removal assistance that you deserve.