Squirrels

[gallapunk]

I've just had to invest in some squirrel-proof nut feeders for the garden so that the poor old birds can get a look-in. We had two squirrels raiding them every day, grrr.

But my question is: is it true that squirrels will attack cats? My cats seem scared of the squirrels; when they go into the garden and one of the squirrels starts screeching at them, they run back inside, poor things. My friend tells me that her cat chased a squirrel, caught it and the squirrel bit him on the neck, puncturing the skin. I know they're a member of the rat family and ordinary rats will fight back if cornered, but the ones in my garden don't seem to be scared at all.

[burnhal]

It seems to depend on the cat. My cat has a truce with them- she is a fairly small cat and tends to ignore them. If she wanders down the garden whilst they are there they dissapear til she has gone. On the other hand my mums cat was a big tom and would quite happily kill a squirrel.

[Cugetit]

Part 1
Hi. I cannot comment on the interaction between squirrels and cats but we used to have a big problem with them. I don't hate any animals .... even squirrels..... but I had to work on a method of securing the birds' feeders and it took me over a year to come up with a foolproof method. We have the metal post with the hooks which support various types of feeders. I purchased a squirrel baffler .... one of those which resembles a large lamp shade, made of perspex. This baffler comes complete with a bolted hook which fits into a small hall in the centre of the baffler. The baffler is really intended to be suspended from a tree branch or whatever and the bird feeders suspended on the underside of the baffler so that any attempt to raid the feeders from above would result in the squirrel sliding off the baffler. However, I worked on the hole in the baffler until it was large enough to allow it to be used in conjunction with our metal feeder pole. The baffler is then slid up the pole as near to the feeders as possible and secured in this position with a jubilee clip or some such fitment. Of course, the feeder pole has to be far enough away from trees, sheds, etc. to make it impossible for the little blighters to leap onto the part of the feeder above the baffler. That may be enough for your purposes but I could carry on for hours ("Please don't", I hear you say) We then started to have trouble with wood pigeons, a lot of them, landing on the top of the feeder and emptying feeders containing sunflower hearts in about half an hour ..... an amount which would last the bluetits several days. This resulted in my fixing another baffler on the very top of the feeder. No problems after that. Not the end though!!!
We also have a food tray for the ground feeders ... blackbirds, robins, hedgesparrows, etc. and ..... yes, you guessed it, squirrels were hogging the trays and not allowing the birds to feed until they had had

[Cugetit]

Part 2
I then purchased a humane trap ... meant for rats .... and in the last three weeks I have caught four squirrels ... one of them this morning. They are vicious little ******* ... even more so when you see them close up.. When I catch one I take it to a park about 2 miles away and release it, hoping they are not homing squirrels. I didn't think they were meat eaters but last year my wife was observing the birds feeding and a squirrel and unexpectedly a field mouse joined the group. The squirrel made a sudden pounce and grabbed the mouse and leapt onto the garden fence and disappeared ... presumably to eat it!!! Hope this helps. Good luck.

[gallapunk]

Thanks for your replies.

burnhal: glad your cat has got things organised, good for her.

Cugetit: wow! I wasn't in the leat bit bored; quite engrossed actually. I didn't realise I might have to go to such lengths. The birds seem to be happy with the squirrel-proof feeders, but as you quite rightly say, the poor old ground-feedering ones may still have a problem. I've been thinking of getting some mealworms because i've heard that the tits feed them to their young from March/April onwards; do you know whether squirrels eat those? I hope not.

[Cugetit]

gallapunk

Pleased it was some help. I cut a lot out, fortunately for you. I used to have a wooden post which held the bird feeders and of course a wooden post was the answer to a squirrel's prayer. I coated part of the post near the feeders in car grease but that just resulted in the squirrels acquiring waterproof chests. They really are devious but the perspex bafflers, used in the way I described, certainly do the trick. Our garden borders on a small woods so we will not be able to get rid of all the squirrels but with my depositing them a couple of miles away might keep them down for a while. I mentioned the mouse but there was also an incident with a white pigeon, fantail, a couple of weeks ago. I found white feathers protruding from the soil in a large flower pot, which contained bulbs. When I pulled the feathers out of the soil, they were attached to a small piece of flesh. After giving it quite a lot of thought, I came to the conclusion that only a squirrel would have done this.

[FKNelectro]

squirrels have never attacked my cats, and the squirrels round here are pretty huge and fat.
squirrels are rodents, yes, but i think that squirrels are slightly less visious than rats can be.
i think that squirrel in your friends garden was just crazy, they shouldnt do that..

[Brooksy]

I do believe that it is illegal to catch & release squirrels elsewhere. Apparently you can legally kill them (as humanely as possible) because they are classified vermin. In fact there are plans to have a national cull to prevent extinction of our indigenous red one. Some parks departments have for many years hired marksmen to shoot them (whilst the park is closed) because when they run out of stored food they damage/kill trees by stripping & eating the bark. A neighbour of mine has a cage trap & despatches them in his water butt.

[markja]

shake some curry powder on/in with the seeds. birds can't taste it but squirrels can

[gallapunk]

Thanks everyone for your suggestions, it's been very interesting to read them all. I couldn't bring myself to actually kill one though; just hope the squirrel-proof feeders work.