Now what's chewing on our Kentias?

[phoenixbob]

Something is chewing on our Kentias. Not really sure what it is - a rodent perhaps? What eats palm fronds, and why? It doesn't really look like insect damage to me.

Any ideas? And what should we do about it - spray our palms with bitter apple?

The dogs haven't been patrolling the yard as much during the recent heavy rains here in Southern California.

[Darold Petty]

I had the same damage two years ago. The culprits are roof rats, Rattus rattus. My young adult Howea had 16 inches of ringed trunk. Rats chewed off 11 of 12 fronds, all at the top of the petiole. This palm eventually died from a secondary fungus attack in its weakened condition. Rats also ate all of my first crop of Hedyscepe seeds just as they began to mature.

Since then I have kept two live-catch box traps set in my garden at all times. I catch 2 or 3 rats every week. I drown the rats, cage and all, in my garden pond, them put the corpse in my green wastebin with the plant trimmings.

Please DO NOT use poison bait. There is a high risk of secondary poisoning of non-target animals such as hawks or owls. The most common rat poison is a blood thinning chemical that takes a few days to kill the rat. The rats are an easy target for predators in their weakened condition. If you must use poison, use bait with the active ingredient Bromethaline. This poison kills within 24 hours with a lethal dose ingestion from one feeding.

For more info please read about rats here, www.doyourownpestcontrol.com

Sorry, I don't know why the address doesn't work as a hyperlink, someone send me a PM about this!

Edited December 23, 2010 by Darold Petty

[WestCoastGal]

Darold, I'll make the link clickable for everyone's ease. Here it is: Do Your Own Pest Control

BTW I clicked on the "chain link with the plus" icon and copied and pasted the link in from the actual site (noticed it started out with http:// which your above link didn't (not sure if that was the problem or not), and saved it to the post. Interestingly it came up with underscored text saying My Link. I went back into it and saw the My Link text and changed it to the DYOPC text, resaved and it looks fine.

Thanks for the link BTW. I saved it. We also live in a somewhat urban/rural area where I see hawks and vultures quite often. Certainly don't want to eliminate the natural predator controls of rats by using poison. BTW what do you bait your live bait traps with?

Edited December 23, 2010 by WestCoastGal

[Darold Petty]

WestCoastGal; thanks for fixing the link. I use peanut butter to bait the traps. The rats don't seem to care,.. creamy or chunky !

[palmpuppy]

We have five westies that usually patrol the yard. This chomping of the kentias just started when we began keeping them in the house due to all the rain. Also, I took down bird seed feeders as well as hummingbird feeders recently. Maybe because those are no longer available, the rats have started chomping our palms (only the kentias so far). Our rat killer of second choice (after the westies) is the rat zapper. Looks like we need to get it fired up. No poison. We've had palms for about ten years and this just recently started. Very strange. However, it's only been in the last year or two that we started planting kentias.

Jackie

[BigFrond]

Most of the rats damage are caused late at night. Dogs are really useless. I use to kill them with anticoagolent. I worked really well. However, I have not used it over two years. I noticed one benefit of having rats. They will eliminate the garden snails. I see many piles of snail shells in my backyard.

You can use about 1 foot of aluminum band around the base of the palm to prevent them from climbing.

[palmcurry]

Bob & Kackie,

It is possible that this is an inside job. My westie has done some damage to my garden rarities when I wasn't looking. Took me awhile to figure it out because usually I keep my 7 month puppy under a sharp eye. But you know better than I do how westies can cause mischief if given the chance!

I also think the rat theory is just as likely.

[phoenixbob]

No, the damage is way too high in the tree for the dogs. There were some other fronds (no pictures) which were chewed up higher yet.

Also, our westies are older now. You, however, are entering the "jaws with legs" phase, where the sole purpose of the legs is to move the jaws where they can chew something else up!

Rats! I think some of them took out a couple of our red banana trees (Ensete). Chewed right through the "trunk". That was some years ago - haven't had a problem with them chewing up the plants for a long time. I wonder why they like chewing on Kentias?

Bob & Jackie,

It is possible that this is an inside job. My westie has done some damage to my garden rarities when I wasn't looking. Took me awhile to figure it out because usually I keep my 7 month puppy under a sharp eye. But you know better than I do how westies can cause mischief if given the chance!

I also think the rat theory is just as likely.

[Jim in Los Altos]

I had a huge problem with European gray squirrels chewing fronds off of Chamaedorea radicalis, Howea, P. roebelenii, P. canariensis, and stripping Washingtonia leaves all for the sake of building their nests. They nearly killed a couple of the palms. Their damage occurs during the day so as soon as my collie puppies grew up a bit, they did and do a great job keeping the squirrels out of the yard. One of them has caught and killed a couple of Norway rats too.

[Mark Heath]

My dog is a hunter for sure! He is half German Shepherd and half Huskey. He stays outside at night when it is cooler. He kills rats, squirrels, possums and racoons. But if he gets a rat, he usually eats it! Bleah!

Also the cats have a say in pest control as well.

Good luck w/ your Kentias, rat traps look like the way to go.