There are a whole lot of different Fort Collins animal pests that can be a gardener's worst nightmare but by nature gardeners are the ultimate optimists and generally the last thing they will want to do is to kill any creature no matter the amount of damage the animal has done. One option I've heard put up is that you enclose your entire garden with an animal proof fence and that might be fine if your garden is 6' x 4' but my garden covers nearly a quarter of an acre so that idea would be both time-consuming in both its construction and maintenance and also extremely expensive.



As I also have chickens I have another reason for unfriendly Colorado critters to come calling. The fact that I also have three dogs that hate all thieving critters means most do not get a foothold, even a big male coyote has the wind put up him by three aggressive dogs almost his size. Another option that has been recommended is to have an electric fence around the garden but in my yard that is just not an option but your circumstances will be different so you should look at the idea.

I mostly use deterrent methods to keep unwanted Fort Collins critters away, I have both motion activated sprinklers and lights both of which do a very good job, very few critters come back after being sprayed with cold water and then lit up for every predator around the place to see them, of course there is always going to be the more persistent pest. I have to say but, my biggest pest so far is my neighbors cat using one of my garden beds as a toilet and as my dogs know the cat they do not chase him away, but he knows now that if I catch him, he had better be quick.

Another thing I had installed for a short space of time that worked extremely well but turned out was annoying my neighbors was a motion activated airhorn, I still turn this on occasionally up until about 10 PM just to give any Fort Collins critter that is starting to get used to the other deterrents something else to be very frightened of, I set it up on the fence close to where most of the animals come over, so having it's blast of noise very close to them usually frightens the hell out of them.

The one thing all gardeners have to get used to is every year you have to go through the same rituals again to frighten off and make sure that the new batch of Colorado critters know your garden is off-limits, but sometimes this can be hilariously funny and times like that make it all worthwhile.

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