Help! How do I get rid of these squirrels?
How do I get rid of squirrels?
Comments
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In our neck of the woods, we shoot them. No questions asked.
If they is not an option, can you start trapping them?
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Give them a break... you are invading their territory with your garden, not them yours.
When it comes to wildlife problems and it is outdoors I am sorry but my policy is to find a way to co-exist with them. And since your garden is in their outdoors area, it isn't fair to kill them just because they are in their own home area.
Sorry but I just don't feel your solution should be an option,
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What I would do is a deterrent but it isn't going to harm them. It's just going to let them know they need to go find somewhere else to find their dinner today.
This recipe pretty much works for any walking visitor you are trying to keep away because of its odor and heat (once they lick their paws.)
So try this and see if it helps.
· This recipe will often protect your garden area from almost any unwelcome visitors, whether they are flying in or ground-walkers. Mix together 4 tablespoons of ground mustard, 3 tablespoons of ground cayenne pepper, 2 tablespoons chili powder, 2 tablespoons of cloves, 1 tablespoon of liquid hot sauce and place this all in 2 quarts of warm rain water**. Pour it into a 2 gallon sprinkling can (reserved for only this purpose – never re-use this can for your fertilizer schedule) and water the entire perimeter of the area you are trying to protect.
It has helped me a lot to keep unwelcome visitors out of my garden.
The other thing you might want to do, I have a separate garden I plant each year just for the wildlife. Extra seeds, plants etc go into it and I let them eat whatever they want. While they are eating thru theirs, they commonly leave mine alone. Just find the direction they usually come from and make sure they get that garden first by having it in their path.
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@greyfurball Here in the country, it is certainly an option. They destroy buildings and more. They can also be carriers of disease. Most country people do this. I didn't post it to offend anyone, but it is what is done here, and is an option if you are rural & is not unlike dealing with gophers. Neither are in any danger of becoming endangered. Far from it. They just become cat or dog food.
I am sure @judsoncarroll4 would probably eat them at that.
I did give the idea of trapping them.
A good cat will also hunt them.
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Here is the best option if you live where you can't shoot them: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Survival-Snares-Funke-Trap-Tags-36-1-16-Survival-Snares-Rabbit-Squirrel/183728523248?hash=item2ac712c7f0:m:mVtHKhGMCrHwkUX9vlzkgpQ You can see how to use them on youtube - best option is usually a pole or a limb set.
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Actually, if you are not going to eat them, Victor style rat traps are even easier, and they only cost a $1 or so at a dollar store. Bait them with peanut butter and unsalted sunflower seeds, UNDER the trigger. If you bait the top of the trigger, they can steal the bait. Be sure to get the big ones for rats, not the little ones for mice.
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@judsoncarroll4 That's not a whole lot different than trapping a weasel.
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I've not had much experience with weasels. I live somewhat below the mink belt. But, we did have at least one that decided to kill my house cats a few years ago. That was a real shock to me. But, when one got my mean/playful, smart, favorite tomcat... yeah... snaring and trapping was the answer. I still miss that cat; his name was Spot and he was awesome! Here is one more option that works really well for critters that invade chicken houses or your own house:
https://www.wildlifecontrolsupplies.com/animal/NBRBG35WB.html
The square version has many trapping applications - usually called a "conibear" or body grip trap, they come in small sizes for mink, larger for coon and even big "330s" for beaver. They are kill traps, so unless you use them in cold weather and check them early it he morning, the meat will spoil. Snares are always my go to. Leg hold traps are classic, humane when used properly and very reliable... but also fairly expensive and heavy. Box and cage traps are rarely practical due to size. But, I think everyone should know how to build a rabbit box and learn to use them. There is something very worthwhile in learning to build a humane and effective trap with your own hands, setting it, catching supper and protecting your garden! Here are a couple of videos from my friend, Tim "The Meat Trapper" Roper... a rabbit box and a squirrel box.
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We've completely netted our veggie garden, a bit of expense but an awesome option. Keeps everthing out but lets the bees in. 3 tall posts each side, a taller one in the centre. Wires from the centre post to every other post and then we ran a plain wire around the whole square. We went around the outside with wire netting about 3 feet and then ran rolls of bird net over the top and secured to the plain wire that the wire netting was attached to. We have possums, bandicoots, marsupial mice, as well as birds to consider. They used to have a great old time. Now its a win, win for everyone.
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I think the real problem with squirrels is not necessarily the squirrel, but the lack of natural predators that allows the squirrel population to get so out of balance. We have a small suburban back yard and there was the day I looked out my back window and could count 12 squirrels without moving my head. That is just too many.
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I'm in agreement with @LaurieLovesLearning on this one. Anything that is given improved habitat or a better food supply will experience an unnatural increase in population and may need to be controlled in some way. Co-existing is usually not possible when they reach invasive status. Relocation is an option as long as you aren't just relocating the problem to a different area. But many times, shooting them is the only way. The Eastern Grey Squirrel was introduced to one of the parks in the Lower Mainland of BC and it is now considered on of the top 100 invasive species in the world. They tend to endanger habitat for native species and should be aggressively controlled, regardless of how cute they might seem to be.
For me, the problem is gophers and they are getting shot. Simply not possible to fence everything in from them. Their holes are a huge hazard to livestock. Later in the year it will be bears. I don't mind sharing a bit of my extra fruit and veggies with them but if they have come into an area like this and have stayed long enough to visit several times and get into garbage, there isn't much hope for them. Relocation is not an option here.
@judsoncarroll4 You amaze me with your survival skills.
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Squirrels...my friends know how much I just “love “ squirrels. Ugh they’re the worst and I'm convinced until I can learn to “co exist “ with them my level of love in the world will be hindered. I try/am trying. But have used super soaker water guns, high power nerf guns that shoot little yellow balls; it doesn’t hurt them but stuns them. I have one now who just taunts me. He comes down the tree, I tell at him, maybe charge over to him so he’ll run; no. He climbs down further and gives me the evil eye. We’ve trapped them; it doesn’t matter what you do: they come back. I call them names I can’t mention here too
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@maimover I wondered if squirrels came back. I know that many animals do.
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As usual the truth might be a little more complicated. The first thing to do is to watch their daily behavior for a bit (a few days to a week or so is usually enough). Mostly, the same squirrels will return to the same spot. We've tried the kinds of concoctions suggested by greyfurball, and sometimes they've worked - for a while. It mainly has not been a permanent solution. When squirrels, who do destroy a lot of things, are unwilling to leave an area, we shoot them. But not with one of our regular firearms, rather with a high level .22 pellet gun. It does the job without disturbing neighbors, and gets rid of the squirrels who are stubborn and won't go away. Hope that helps...
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The squirrels in my area love to take over gopher holes so dissuade them I do a couple of things, one make up a batch of hot pepper sauce (the cheapest I can find), pepper seeds and black pepper and put it in the hole or I have a some packaged of sand-like stuff that is for gophers and moles that is natural that has a lot of garlic in it and it works on squirrels as well. Also I have two owls that patrol in my backyard between 3-4 am.
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The squirrels in our yard throw acorns at us when we sit on the deck. They dig up my potted plants to plant said acorns for winter harvest. We are in the process of enclosing the garden beds because they are smart enough to get the netting coverings off. My cats do not kill them. The dogs don't even chase them. *sigh*
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@jamielegon Welcome to the TGN forum!
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I personally use cayenne pepper powder on my plants and it repeals them. I recommend putting it on the leaves if you have a deer problem and definitely on the ground for a squirrel problem. The capsaicin (which is the protein that makes the pepper hot) will make any mammal regret messing with your plants.
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@chubcole Welcome!
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I use hot peppers, too. It does seem to work. I also use coffee grounds.
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@LaurieLovesLearning my husband whine take them far away after he trapped them. I think they came back with all the rest of those “rats with tails” that they met along the way. It was crazy!
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Here a solution: https://www.airgundepot.com/hatsan-striker-1000s-air-rifle-combo.html I absolutely love mine. It has replaced my .22 standard rifle for all legal applications. I bet @jamielegon will agree. It is quiet enough to shoot targets in the backyard and not upset the neighbors, but powerful enough to kill small game humanely at up to 50 yards or so. They offer refurbished ones on that site every now and then, for around $50-75. That is good, because they need "breaking in" for accuracy. Pellets are way cheaper than bullets, too. We have flying squirrels in the mountains, that come down the chimney and do all sorts of damage. You can't shoot a standard gun indoors without risking damage, but with the air rifle, I've harvested supper in then den.... as they ran along the mantel while I watched the evening news.... Buddy enjoyed immensely..... we had pan fried squirrels with gravy, over rice. BTW, mine is .22
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We have terrible squirrels. Everyday - many times a day - I see that they've dug a small hole in my garden beds or even in the ground looking for whatever their looking for. Luckily, they've not dug up any of the veggies or flowers I've planted. But they have dug up my ginger and tumeric and claimed them as their own. They are not longer in my garden. I'm sure they're the ones who take my gladiolus bulbs each year too.
The best thing I've done to get rid of them is to sadly stop filling my bird feeders. I do have a suet feeder that now only has hot pepper suet cakes in it. Before I tried them I had to wire the suet feeder shut and wire it to the hook - terrible squirrels!! But now after they tasted the hot pepper suet cake and decided they didn't like it - NO MORE squirrels!
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Even here in the western suburbs of Chicago, we have, hawks, owls, fox, coyote, along with the house cats and dogs. One result of the stay in place order is that I have seen higher levels of wildlife in our general area. I have noticed that the squirrels are smaller, though still rather numerous. My wife uses the cayenne powder and spray, which keeps some of the squirrel gangs at bay, but not all of them.
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@maimover I was told to take them at least 5 miles and preferably more than 10 miles away by a "pest removal" professional years ago. I tried to make certain there was at least 1 multi-lane interstate hiway between my home and where I dropped the squirrels since we dont have any rivers less than 20 miles away
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I have a small garden I have lost my first two tomatoes of the season as well as almost all my blueberries to squirrels. .It’s so disheartening to wait for something to ripen and then find it half eaten on the ground because they don’t actually like it But they continue to pick them off. I’ve been having some luck with a product that is meant to repel deer as well as squirrels we have a huge deer population here. It smells like moth balls and hangs on a stake near the garden so there is no spraying and the animals can’t actually get at it to ingest it. It seems to be working for now. Of course, there are no ripe vegetables at the moment.
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When I was about 10 my daddy took a rock to a squirrel..to it's head at about 50 plus maybe paces. The squirrel went down immediately, and my dad then informed me I was to help him skin it. I did, and we took it back to my granny's house, she cooked it up and it was eaten, albeit not by many as it was only one.
When I was in my twenties and thirties, I used to hunt rabbit and deer. What ever meat I shot, bow or gun.. I ate of as well.
You might want to take as many as you can, clean and freeze as there is more and more talk all over our country of the coming meat famine...
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Not as a joke, but how good are dogs and "barn"(big ole) cats at acting as a deterrent?
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@Melinda I'm pretty sure our squirrels drop walnuts on us on purpose! This spring I had walnut saplings growing in my garden. They buried walnuts all over. And we even collected several hundred pounds of walnuts to process. My dog and cats usually run them off, but there's enough of them to still keep busy about hiding nuts.
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David the Good has a few helps ... He's been featured here on the Home Grown Food Summits.
http://www.thesurvivalgardener.com/get-rid-of-squirrels/
Paint balls work. And you'll know what squirrels stick around or not after a week. Nelson makes an animal-control version of the paint balls. Several US National Parks use Nelson Deter-it Animal Control as their primary animal control system. And it will work in neighborhood too.
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