How To Keep Animals From Eating Tomatoes Before Ripe ?

I had several tomatoes almost ready to be picked.  When I thought they would be ripe enough I went out to pick them.  To my surprise they had all been eaten.  There were seeds an  bits of orange peeling at the base of the plant.  The easiest remedy is to build a chicken wire cage around the plants....simple, and somewhat inexpensive.  Instead of placing a cage around each individual, I basically created a fence around all of the plants about 24" tall and secured them at evenly spaced locations with thin steaks which I cut out at home (I suppose they are available at the hardware stores)  No more problems.  In my area there are squirrels, skunks, possums, and raccoons.  A neighbor suggested to quickly dispatch the varmits with a high powered pellet rifle. He has fun with it since the nights are warm and he can just hang out and using a red spotlight.  Fish and game laws frown on such things, but hey....it's war...lol.  
Be careful if you use this method on skunks.  Even a fatal head shot will cause them to spray and your garden will smell for quite a while.  In the case of skunks he says he sets them up by placing food for them on an elevated surface in front of the plants where they have their greedy little paws up and their backs to him,  This presents a perfect target where he will center his crosshairs right between the shoulder blades.  A shot there will sever the spinal chord disabling his ability to spray and enter the lung and heart area. Death is pretty much instantaneous.
Well, good luck with your varmit problem.