Who ate my apples?

I don't know - but these two seem to like apples!

home.bt.com/news/oddnews/rats-could-grow-bigger-than-sheep-11363872766038

Squirrels like Apples or do you have a sneaky neighbour who likes Apple Pie

Is there a lock on the shed? The culprit may be a two-legged one.

Puzzling – but not so puzzling as who buried a hard-boiled egg down the bottom of a huge plant pot containing a Japanese maple.

I will approach the shed very gingerly tomorrow, just in case there is a sheep sized rat there.

I thought about two legged invaders, but the apples were really only fit for stewing, a bit soft and wrinkly, any way both our neighbours gardens are awash with apple trees, so if they wanted apples they would have saved their own.

Now squirrels......., we have a lot of them because we have a hazel tree in the garden. Would they pick the apples out and take them away or would they, like mice, nibble on the spot? I haven't seen any bits of apple anywhere, although I haven't really looked.

I can help you on this [no! it wasn't me!] but I happen to know that squirrels take things away, they carry quite large items in their mouths and stash them in their 'drays' usually up a large tree.They never eat them on the spot. Can't say what rats do. However, how are squirrels getting in and out of the shed?Sure it isn't grandchildren?

We have just one quite tame squirrel. He loves fat balls and nibbles a hole in the net so he can run off with it. Last year's apples were all gone by the time he adopted us so I don't know if he likes them yet.

Have you looked on the floor to see if any rat droppings about, might be a clue. Do foxes take apples away? Let us know if you find the culprit.

Not sure that rats would take them away. We have had to stop composting our vegetable peelings again because the rats like them (and bird seed, which had fallen from the bird feeder)
I have seen squirrels take food away to bury all over the garden, we are constantly pulling up hazel saplings sprouted from Cyril the squirrel's buried cache, plus finding buried windfalls.

That is weird Absent I transplanted some shrubs for my parents last year and found an intact raw egg at the bottom of one of the pots. It must have been there for at least 3 years.

I am with the two legged apple thief FlicketyB as I am sure any four legged friend would have left some evidence.

Do you live anywhere where pinemarten inhabit. They are partial to fruit and also eggs.

My son tells me that rats can steal eggs from the hens, by holding the egg in their mouth, lying on their back, and then another rat will drag them back to the nest by their tail!
Maybe they like to store them for a rainy day.

I have looked for rat droppings but can find none. My instinct would be to say two-legged thieves, but the apples were wizened and a bit soft, not an attractive eat, good for cooking but not eating raw - plus who on earth knew about them and could reach them? It is certainly not DH, he is a fussy eater and wouldn't touch them.

The shed concerned is 100 feet plus down a garden which is surrounded by a six foot fence in good order, the overgrown orchard garden of older neighbours wraps round two sides of the garden and they do not even harvest their own apples and the other neighbours are a young family, whom we know well, who again have apples galore of their own and children too young to forage. The garden can only be accessed through the house or via a narrow side entrance with a six foot locked gate.

rosesare red I think you are right it is squirrels. We do have them in the garden as we have a huge hazel tree. The shed door does not close well so it would be easy for them to get in. The apples were in a plastic box on a chair. Difficult for mice to access, the usual problem, but not a squirrel. However they did not touch the carrots stored in adjacent box, although I think they may have disturbed the lid.

I need to invite Sherlock Holmes in to solve the mystery

I'd prefer Dr Watson myself.

I think rats would go for the easy option of windfalls from your neighbou's garden, if there are still any around, even half rotten ones.

Squirrels! I put all my discarded apples and cores in various places round the garden and in my outbuilding which has a wide gap under the old door. It distracts them from coming near the kitchen where my strawberry beds are, and the bird feeders. My dog barks when she sees them nipping in there. The squirrels love apples. They don't leave anything behind.

My husband once put some seed potatoes in the shed, and we could not figure out where they had gone.some time later, when we discovered that rats had been in the shed, we discovered the shrivelled remains in a corner at the back of said shed where rats had made their nest!