Want to keep squirrels off your bird feeder? This is the place for you.
Squirrels are smart, acrobatic, creative animals. Their teeth can chew through any plastic, some metals, and all wood. If there’s a lid to your feeder that can open they’ll find a way to open it. A squirrel can fall over 30 feet from tree to ground and survive without missing a beat. They can jump too. Impressive little animals.
Here are ideas for squirrels get less of your bird seed than your birds:
- Suet box DIY project
- Upside down suet feeder that keeps the squirrels, sparrows and starlings away. Holds up to 3 suet cakes to limit refills.
- Cut a 5" by 5" square hole in a 3' x 3' piece of plywood. Screw a wooden box to the top of the plywood. Make one of the sides of your box open with a loose nail connector. Put half of a traditional suet cage at at the bottom of the box showing through the 5" by 5" square hole. Load your suet cakes into the box. The woodpeckers, nuthatches, and wrens can hang upside down from the bottom.
- Safflower
- Cardinals and many other native song birds love it. Squirrels don’t. They will avoid a feeder filled with it.
- Suet cage
- There is a cage specifically designed to thwart the squirrel. The chicadees, nuthatches, and woodpeckers are free to pig out. Check it out, first image on the right. It works great.
- Squirrel proof feeders
- There are a ton of these. Not all of them work. These two do. First is the squirrel proof sunflower seed feeder, second is this squirrel proof thistle feeder.
- Hummingbird feeders
- Squirrels couldn’t care less about hummingbird nectar. Any feeder will suffice. I like this one because it is inexpensive and made of quality materials.