Squirrels eating coop!

[sourland]

If feed is in the coop, moving it out to the run may help. I'd just catch them and eat 'em.

 

[linguini]

Can you cover the boards with metal sheeting? it's slippery and harder for them to get a bite into it. When squirrels are determined, they are smart and excellent gymnasts. Make sure there are no place for them to land/climb onto the walls. They will chew through wire.

 

[cmom]

I bait them and eliminate them. They are not endangered and more will move in eventually to replace them then I eliminate them, and on and on. Good luck...

 

[Al Gerhart]

Most likely coming in for the feed. Guineas can use treadle feeders, one squirrel can't, a bunch of squirrels might learn to cooperate and get the treadle down but they usually get trapped. Pull the feeder off its mounting cleat and go for a drive to dispose of the critter. Might shingle the outside of the feeder with some scrap sheet metal, gallon cans cut apart, five gallon buckets cut apart.

Bringing the feed in at night will just teach the rats to steal feed during the day. Either hand feed twice a day or invest in a good treadle feeder with a spring loaded door and a narrow and distant treadle step if you want to defeat a squirrel.

Good luck!

 

[Geena]

My grandfather has the hardest time with squirrels. They get into his attic. He said they're too smart for traps, but that could just be the squirrel he has.
It's expensive, but you could switch to metal roofing.

I found it very easy to trap squirrels and usually caught 2 or 3 a day. I used a med sized hav-a-hart and adjusted it a bit so it had more of a hair trigger. Smeared peanut butter on the trip plate for "glue" and sprinkled that with sunflower seeds. He could tie the door up for a few days until they get more accustomed to the trap. Squirrels can really do a lot of damage your house.

 

[Windrider]

Insurance companies estimate that 20% of house fires in the US are caused by squirrels, or around 30,000 fires per year. They chew on electrical wiring. The worst offender by far is the Eastern Grey Squirrel.

It is bad enough you folks back east have to deal with these bushy-tailed daytime rats. I want to wring the neck of whoever introduced them to Los Angeles. They are not native to the west and we didn't have them here when I was a kid, we should only have native ground squirrels until you get to higher elevations, then only Western Grey Squirrels and Chickarees, which reasonably well behaved, for squirrels.

I regularly lose my internet due to squirrels chewing on the cable. They would steal everything from my fruit trees and like to strip bark off the trees, too, if I let them. I've seen them pulling up my neighbors roof shingles. They also eat the eggs of endangered western song birds, so as biologist, I eliminate Eastern squirrels with extreme prejudice.

Like Geena, I find them very easy to trap, especially using peanut butter as bait. They are completely unwary and unfazed by humans. Sometimes they are on the fence waiting to get in the trap as I am setting it. I use two traps on my property, one at either entry point on the back fence they use as a highway.

Kania 2000

I use this trap. It is the most humane kill trap I could find. Please do not us a live trap and release somewhere else. That is illegal. If you use a live trap, be prepared to shoot or ether gas the squirrel. I give my dead squirrels to my neighbor who feeds them to his monitor lizard (saves him from buying poor bunnies to feed it).

 

[Iluveggers]

Can you cover the spot they are chewing with hardware cloth nailed on?