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The other day I saw a green coconut on the ground under one of our trees and it seemed strange as we had them all removed a few months ago and they usually don't start falling for about a year after that. The next day I saw 2 or 3 more and the next day even more. They have all been gouged out and something has made a huge hole and eaten the flesh. I am thinking there are rats up there but can they eat and destroy that much in just a few days? Birds?
I am constantly seeing new and amazing things here!
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Once a green coconut enters our yard my dogs can put a hole in it and eat the flesh out in a matter of hours. Then they use the husk and shell as chew toys, the crunching sound is a little disconcerting. If you don't have dogs I would bet on rats, they can chew through almost anything given enough time.
Carol
Carol
Every time you feel yourself getting pulled into other people's nonsense, repeat these words: Not my circus, not my monkeys.
Polish Proverb
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Thanks Carol.
We have no dogs around here and it looks like the coconuts are eaten in the tree and dropped. I guess it's rats but I am amazed at how fast they are. There must be a huge family up there. We've been here several years and I have never seen this happen.
I'm curious - how can a dog make a hole in a coconut?
And....I am kind of scared to see what monster rats come down from that tree once they have eaten everything up there.
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our dog can make a pretty good bite into the coconut, then just works on it to make a nice hole.... but here favorite thing is to run around the yard with the full coconut in her mouth, running into anything/body in her way... silly hubby keeps getting her new ones (can I claim that the bruises are spousal abuse???) If SRD is really bored, she will pull off all of the husk fiber & then chomp into the eyes of the nut & rip it apart...
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Put a piece of sheet metal around your tree about 1 foot wide. They can cross it going up.
Daniel R Diamond
Daniel R Diamond
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wow Carey what kind of dog you got those coconuts are tough. hahahaha
ALOHA
http://myhawaiipardise.blogspot.com/
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On the topic of decimated coconuts, is there any progress in the battle against that fungus disease that has killed many coconuts on the islands? Does it make sense to plant coconuts with this disease around? If so, what varieties seem to be resistant?
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Dog is a rescued throw-a-way, mostly Red Heeler, now an SRD
As to RATs, well those buggers ate through (completely through) the romax wiring this house had before we bought our house... definitely they can go through a mere coconut. We do get the holes in our citrus fruit on the tree, and some of them have the tell tale 2 scrape marks of the rats incisors, so you may want to look closely at the the nuts to see what gnaw marks are around the hole... dogs will leave incisor scrapes that are much wider and pointier that the rats close set chisel type gnaw marks...
