Everyone (well, almost everyone) loves the little furry and mischievous friends that live in our gardens. They’re always playful and they demonstrate real intelligence, determination and cunning. It’s unfortunate that this side of squirrels is most revealed when they start raiding the bird feeders! As squirrels love to eat most if not all of the food on the feeders, bird lovers are always on the lookout for bird feeders that are squirrel proof, or at least those which will deter them.
The bigger relative size of the squirrels enables them to take over any unprotected bird feeders and drive the birds away. This has made the bird feeder companies take a close look at how they can make their bird feeders more squirrel proof. One company has cleverly developed a bird feeder that uses the squirrel’s own weight against it.
With this feeder, when the squirrel sits on the perch its weight causes the battery powered motor to activate. The motor makes the perch flip up and close the feeder against the squirrel. The squirrel’s own weight causes it to go flying through the air (the squirrel really only tumbles off of the feeder perch). This squirrel proof bird feeder is called the Yankee Flipper Squirrel Proof Bird Feeder. I know that’s quite a mouthful, but you only need to remember “Yankee Flipper” and the main point is that it does the job very well.
Besides these there are many other ways that have been tried in the eternal war against squirrels. Baffles and feeder combinations are one of the more common ways bird feeder manufacturers have tried to address the problem. With these, a squirrel proof baffle is put on a pole mounted feeder below the feeder. The baffle should be above the feeder if the bird feeder is being hung from a strong chain. The baffle is actually a large dome that the squirrel has to somehow jump over or climb around. It has great difficulty doing this because the surface is so smooth and slippery.
Another type of squirrel proof feeder is a tube feeder. These have the food enclosed by a wire cage, and the idea is that the holes of the cage are too small for the squirrel to get to the seed, but they are just the right size for birds to eat their seeds in peace. This feeder is called a Caged Bird Feeder.
If you’re creative at all, you can squirrel proof your own feeder by putting it on a wire mounted platform. You’ll need to attach the two ends of the wire to two sturdy and strong walls or posts. Between the feeder and the posts you should put some plastic or PVC tubing on the wire. Do this so that when the squirrel tries to walk over the tubing to get to the feeder the slippery tubing will spin, thereby causing the squirrel to lose its balance.
One of the main things to keep in mind throughout your “fight” with squirrels is that they are persistent, agile and acrobatic. One of the best ways to squirrel proof your feeders is to put them in a spot away from things such as trees, railings and roofs that squirrels can launch themselves from. This means at least eight to ten feet away from those places, and your feeder should also be kept at least four feet above the ground, in the way that pole bird feeders are. This is the most important way to squirrel proof your bird’s food from squirrels. At the end of the day, if none of this works, you could always just throw in the towel and start feeding the squirrels as well!
