Animals

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What type of animals do you have in your garden? When I started decorating my garden and filling it up, I didn't even think about animals who lived there before I came. I was very ignorant and didn't even notice I was risking their lives. When I realized that, I switched it all up to be animal friendly input even more animals inside it. Of course, they can go wherever they want and whenever they want! Do you have animals in your garden? If so, what kind?
 

JBtheExplorer

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I love topics like this! I don't use any chemicals like pesticides or fertilizers, which can be deadly to animals and insects, and all of my plants are native species.

I have all sorts of life in my garden. Animals in my garden include many types of birds like American Goldfinches and Tree Swallows, mammals like mice, squirrels, and rabbits, and amphibians such as Leopard Frogs and American Toads. Of course, my most frequent visitors are insects.

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We designed our garden to be "critter friendly" and it succeeded beyond our wildest (pun intended) expectations! We have birds and snakes and toads and geckos and rabbits. Our pond is the home of turtles and fish, and we even have coyotes passing through the pasture.
Since we keep bees, we plant flowers and clover that are heavy on pollen and nectar, and we have plants that host butterfly larvae for Monarchs, Swallowtails, Hackberrys, and Sulphurs.
Sometimes I think that the birds, and other critters have taken over, and we are simply the two-legged servants that provide food and water, and make everything nice-nice for them!
 

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Bugs, Lizards, Bees, Birds and sometimes Butterfly's. Have seen a possum and raccoon, but that is rare. We get a lot of birds, nothing to fancy but we really like them all. We also have a lot of lizards, alligator lizards specifically. We've learned to get along... me and the lizards.
 
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live on a 3 acre wooded property with 3 undeveloped woods behind me that is protected from developing. so visually I can see pretty far without seeing a house behind me. With that said, the woods are the woods. My gardens were never structured to keep anything out, they were shaped to embrace nature. So, besides my 6 cats that roam, there are foxes, raccoons, deer, ground hog, possums, vultures, phesants, snakes, frogs, toads, cranes, hawks, many birds, wild turkeys, and squirrels.
 
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Over the last few years, I grew flowers that particularly attracting bees, butterflies, and birds. I also put out three bird feeders during the cold months of winter. I don't use any chemicals in my garden but added crushed egg shells, used coffee ground, and chopped up banana peels.
 
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Our garden was filled with snails :p Lots of them, I loved that as a kid because I thought it was so fun to be able to play with those little sticky creatures. I also saw some other insects and earthworms. Lots of birds as well.
 
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We have one animal who scares off other animals. It's our little Yorkshire Terrier:D He's very territorial and aggressive.
Cats are his biggest enemies.
 
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There are toads which seem to be permanent inhabitants of our garden. They hide in the nook and cranny of the garden and although we see them at times, we just let them stay since they eat insects particularly mosquitoes. But we do not allow slugs in our garden because they eat the young leaves of plants. What we do with slugs is to ground them to serve as fertilizers.
 
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No animals really hang out in my yard - apart from bugs/creepy crawlies! We are quite urban and as a result there isn't really wildlife freely roaming around. It's amazing though when you get out into the countryside of Japan - the most amazing thing to me was once on a drive up through some mountainous terrain there were monkeys just hanging out by the side of the road!
 
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There are a lot of birds that are usually attracted to insects in my garden. There are also lizards in the garden. I recently realised that there are also snakes that are attracted to eating lizards. There are fewer mice though.
 
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There are toads which seem to be permanent inhabitants of our garden. They hide in the nook and cranny of the garden and although we see them at times, we just let them stay since they eat insects particularly mosquitoes. But we do not allow slugs in our garden because they eat the young leaves of plants. What we do with slugs is to ground them to serve as fertilizers.
I remember there were many toads in my parents' garden when I was a kid. One used to live near the basement entrance. It was a giant toad! And it looked really cute:)
Unfortunately, I don't know what happened to them. I haven't seen any toads in a long time.
 
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I remember there were many toads in my parents' garden when I was a kid. One used to live near the basement entrance. It was a giant toad! And it looked really cute:)
Unfortunately, I don't know what happened to them. I haven't seen any toads in a long time.

We are friendly with the toads but I have some apprehensions because I had read in one article that toads have warts on their skin which actually (the warts) hold poison. When it is attacked, the toad would emit venom from their skin. I have 3 dogs who are sometimes let loose in the garden and I'm afraid they would attack the toads.
 

JBtheExplorer

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We are friendly with the toads but I have some apprehensions because I had read in one article that toads have warts on their skin which actually (the warts) hold poison. When it is attacked, the toad would emit venom from their skin. I have 3 dogs who are sometimes let loose in the garden and I'm afraid they would attack the toads.

Toads are one of my favorite guests! I place logs around the gardens and occasionally I'll flip them and always find at least one Toad under one of the logs. Of course, ask me what my opinion is of them in about four months when their mating calls scream outside of my window in my pond! :ROFLMAO: I don't necessarily mind, but I worry that the neighbors do.
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@JBtheExplorer,. you mentioned the mating call. There are lots of frogs and toads in the vacant lot beside our property (which we call extended garden). When it rains hard, especially at night, the croaks of the frogs and toads can be clearly distinguished. Frogs have that usual sound but the toads emit a sound very similar to the mooo of the cow. And can you imagine the racket at night when more than 10 toads would be croaking.
 

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