If your property is near a natural environment like a wooded area, grassy field, or desert, one of the things you have to deal with is wild animals coming into your property. Wild animals do not know anything about property lines or your ownership rights. If they think the plants in your yard look juicy, they will come in to get their share or, worse still, make their home in your yard.

You may be dealing with harmless animals that only want a taste of your well-kept plants and not creatures that can harm you physically. There is a simple reason squirrel, rabbits, deer, groundhogs, and other wildlife love your garden: easy food in a protected area, without fear of lurking predators. Moreover, the soft lawn soil is a perfect place to build a nest.

These creatures can do a fair amount of damage while indulging their taste buds. In one day, a small family of rabbits will decimate your entire garden. If groundhogs get in on the action, just one of them will eat 1.5 pounds of your precious vegetables in a few hours. Raccoons, on their part, will ransack your trash while you sleep and dig up the lawn for insects.

If you are struggling to keep these unwanted creatures out of your yard, here are a few things you can do.

How to keep wildlife away from your property

1. Clean up your yard

If you have piles of wood, brush, and overgrown shrubs in the yard, you are offering wild animals a place to hide. These shy creatures don’t like open spaces, where you can easily spot them. Removing potential hiding places will make your yard less attractive to them.

2. Do not feed them

The main reason animals come to your yard is to find food. While it is not entirely possible to get rid of all their food sources, you can make it harder for them by plucking fruits as soon as they get ripe and picking fruit or nuts off the ground.

3. Remove bird feeders

Bird feeders are great for attracting different types of feathered visitors. But the feed you put in your bird feeder may attract other creatures. You can remove the feeders or choose a meal that only the birds you want to attract will eat.

4. Remove water containers

Water is even more essential to wild animals than food, and you don’t need a lot of water in the yard to attract them. Deer will catch the whiff of a bowl of water from a far distance. Birdbaths and water-filled bowls are invitations to thirsty wild animals.

5. Scare them away

An easy way is to let your dog roam freely. If you would not do this, place some of the dog’s hair or your hair around the yard. Wild animals don’t like being around dogs or humans. You can also use noisemakers or motion-activated sprinklers.

6. Seal or remove access points

Inspect the entire property for holes or pathways that serve as entry points for wild animals. Remove tree branches overhanging your roof; they serve as runways for rodents to get on the rooftop and into your home.

7. Secure and cover garbage bins

Ensure that hungry animals cannot knock over the garbage bin. Never leave the trashcan uncovered. To be double sure, place a heavy brick on the bin cover to keep it from being opened. You may also want to have the garbage in an enclosed area.

8. Repel them

There are many ways to make your yard repulsive to all or specific classes of wild animals:

• Before they start to bloom, plant garlic cloves between flower bulbs to make them less attractive to squirrels. Squirrels don’t like the smell of garlic and will avoid your flowerbeds.
• Spray vegetables with a mixture of water and cayenne pepper. Many wild animals will not come near powdered pepper because it will burn them badly if it gets in their nostrils.
• Use plants that animals hate around the perimeter. For instance, skunks, deer, and squirrels hate the smell of sage and lavender. Squirrels also hate catmint.
• If you want a repellent that will deter many wild animals, you can purchase an all-natural, non-toxic repellent. Before you use these products, read the labels carefully. Some have coyote urine in them, and you don’t want to spray that on your vegetables.

9. Fence them out

A good fence can keep most wild animals off your property. If you have a problem with deer, you can buy a proper deer fence or a standard six-foot fence. Those will also keep smaller animals like squirrels out. But if you have several acreages, erecting a wall around the entire perimeter may be expensive. Cheaper solutions include using netting, electric fencing, and wires around specific areas of the yard. You can also install short fences – two feet high – around vegetable gardens and flower beds to keep rabbits out.

These are just some things you can do yourself to keep wildlife off your property. However, for better and more permanent results, we advise you to call a professional pest control company. They have knowledge and experience as well as equipment that will help them in this task.

Contact Desert Squad Pest & Wildlife Control, a trusted pest control company in Las Vegas, Henderson, Anthem, Paradise, Summerlin, and nearby cities in Clark County, NV. We’ve been successfully controlling and exterminating various wildlife & bugs in the area for the last 10+ years. Contact us by phone at 1-702-829-2200 or through our website or Google My Business listing.