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Not sure if this is the right forum for this question but the topic can always be moved if necessary. I have two bird feeders which the squirrels keep getting into. I have even left peanuts for the squirrels but they keep shaking down the bird feeders lol. Any suggestions? Anything would be a help.
I've had good luck with the type of feeder that has a "cage" around the feeding tube. Small birds can get in but squirrels can't but they'll sure try! I also make sure I have a feeder that the squirrels can use otherwise they will spend all their time trying to figure out the cage feeders which keeps the birds from using them.
I've tried many feeders over the years and you will never keep the squirrels away but this has been the most effective method so far.
A man in St. Louis, Missouri, found that a length of aluminum duct mounted under the feeder foils the squirrels. "The squirrels go up the post and into the duct, but no farther," he says.
For about four dollars, a Quincy, Illinois, homeowner has enjoyed 99 percent squirrel-proof feeders. He attached one end of a Slinky to the top of the pole and allowed the rest to hang so that the pole runs up through the center of the Slinky. Typically, he says, "the squirrels will try to jump onto the pole, grab the Slinky and promptly find themselves dumped to the ground."
A woman in Tampa, Florida, filled old nylon stockings with eight or ten mothballs and hung them near her feeding station to discourage squirrels. Now, from time to time, she adds more mothballs to keep the scent strong. She reports that since she started doing this, she has just as many birds as ever but no squirrels.
Using plastic bottles, a Williamsburg, Virginia, resident devised a simple and cheap way to keep squirrels off his bird feeders. "I made holes in the bottom of a few two-liter juice bottles, large enough to get around the post of my bird feeders," he says. "Then hanging them lengthwise, I secured the bottles a few inches below the feeder with duct tape." He used the same setup on a hanging feeder, sliding the bottles down the wire to position them above the feeder.
Plastic soda bottles strung on heavy galvanized steel wire worked for me when I conducted a bird-seed experiment at my home in Hubertus, Wisconsin. I drilled holes in the bottoms of the bottles and strung them lengthwise on a 30-foot wire that ran through the holes and the open ends of the bottles, eight feet above my patio. The six tube feeders hanging between the bottles were never touched by squirrels, which would have rolled off the bottles had they tried. I´ve also found that a clear plastic dome baffle placed directly above a hanging tube feeder works well, as long as the feeder is high enough off the ground. The squirrels simply slip off the plastic baffle without getting to the feeder.
The same PVC pipe that is used for plumbing can be an effective deterrent for squirrels, which can't climb it. Using the pipe as a post on which a bird feeder is mounted prevents the creatures from getting any traction. They just slide down. A handyman in Donora, Pennsylvania, decorated his PVC posts with white and black paints to make them look like white birch. He then drilled holes in the tops for attaching the feeders with wire.
Though some people have wired their feeders with electricity to keep squirrels away, that can be extremely dangerous. A safer alternative is The WildBills bird feeder, which has a built-in, battery-operated charger that lightly zaps squirrels when they make contact. Birds do not get a shock because they cannot make a contact with only two legs. The small charge only startles squirrels; it is far from being strong enough to hurt them.
A woman in Virginia built a huge chicken wire house, tall enough to stand in so that she could feed the birds and grow tomatoes inside without losing everything to the squirrels. On a smaller scale, commercially made hanging feeders surrounded by wire screen allow small birds to enter and feed, but exclude larger bully birds and squirrels.
A growing number of backyard birders have switched from sunflower seeds to safflower seeds in their bird feeders. They find that the change in diet is popular with cardinals, house finches, chickadees, nuthatches and mourning doves, but the safflower doesn't appeal to squirrels.
Some homeowners have simply learned to live with the squirrels. After years of battling them at their feeding station, trying nearly every type of feeder and seed, a couple in Boulder, Colorado, started feeding squirrels on the ground a distance away from their bird feeders. Not only do they spend only a few dollars a month feeding the squirrels, the couple has found that pine siskins and other birds are also attracted to the feeding area on the ground.
Oh good luck with that! I saw a film once about a guy who tried every conceivable way to keep squirrels out of his bird feeder and it was just amazing the ingenuity of those squirrels! Nothing will stop them, NOTHING. Well, you could just take down the bird feeder, I guess that would do it.
some interesting suggestions. I do like the squirrels so maybe I'll just keep on getting some peanuts and throwing some extra bird seed on the ground. Oddly enough, this has gotten some grass to grow in places it never would before. I want to see birds too, so hopefully some of these tips will help.
some interesting suggestions. I do like the squirrels so maybe I'll just keep on getting some peanuts and throwing some extra bird seed on the ground. Oddly enough, this has gotten some grass to grow in places it never would before. I want to see birds too, so hopefully some of these tips will help.
Do not put out WHOLE (unshelled) peanuts. I have a neighbor who does this and the squirrels bury them in my potted plants and yard. I am forever weeding out peanut plants.
We got a Squirrel Buster Plus feeder a couple years ago. It completely solved the issue of the squirrels hogging all the bird seed. It's kinda pricey, but they warrant it for life.
you can also use Vaseline to coat the pole and the squirrels wont be harmed by it and they just slide down the pole and they don't like it and if it gets in their fur it wont hurt them when they clean themselves ..I go for the more harmless approach . I don't like anything that traps them or hurts them .
I want to add that you will have some awesome sun flowers that the bird will plant freely for you LOL . thanks for trying to find a gentle approach instead of a harmful one . I had an idiot neighbor that would shoot them and I heard one day he shot himself with a bb by accident and after that he stopped shooting them and I must say I was glad he shot himself LOL .
unc, thanks for the tip about the peanuts. and the squirrel feeder. Phonelady lol on the squirrel sliding down the Vaseline. I would never harm anything in Gods creation. There are gentle ways of dealing with hungry squirrels.
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