What’s eating my trees?!

Something keeps severing (biting off? Cutting?) the thin limbs of my young Apple trees. I can’t for the of me figure out what. I don’t have deer (inside a fence). Do common rats do this? I’m in Northern California, wondering if there’s fkneyhbh here in particular thstvdies this since I can’t seem to find other examples of it. Any ideas would be appreciated (I already made little hardware cloth baffles that go around the trees, but if it’s rats, they’ve figured out how to climb over them!)

Time to set up a game camera or some other motion activated unit to identify the culprit. Low tech? Spread a white sheet, set pots on it, check for muddy footprints OR dust with flour on a wind less evening...

My area is nasty with field mice and packrats - they build huge nests of tree branches in wooded areas near me, and have gnawed car wiring, AC wiring, and other things - I've never had anything (other than deer) chew on my trees like that, so I doubt its rats.
If it was rats, I'd suspect them to gnaw around the base of the tree, not crawl up and be miniature lumberkjacks.

Maybe take those photos to your local government agricultural extension thingymajig?

If you set up a videocamera, let us know what it captures!

Looks like deer to me. When deer find something they want they will jump the fence.  They can jump an 8 ft fence.  Look on the ground for tract, droppings, etc.

Try dusting with cayenne pepper until you can find a better way of protecting them.  A double row of string fence might be a temporary solution.

Aw, man!  That really sucks!

I've successfully used sections of 4 foot woven wire fence loosely staked around my new trees until they grow tall enough that deer browsing is a non-issue.  But if it's a climbing varmint, that won't help.

The picture looks nearly identical to what happened to one of my new fruit trees. I did not see who did it, but my suspicion is deer. I made big round cages out of old woven wire fence to help prevent deer from nibbling on the rest of my young trees.

For my trees, I also use three T-posts and a loop of chicken wire about 14-18" radius from the tree. It's only for the first few years until it grows older.

Yours look so close to your house, you'll likely use alot less chicken wire fencing than I do!