Squirrels in the coop

[Henrietta23]

We've got two squirrels who are going into the chicken coop in the middle of the day and helping themselves to the feed. Yesterday I walked down to check the water in the pullet pen and surprised one of the squirrels who was walking down the ramp out of the coop. I was standing behind its escape tree and the thing lept right at me which was pretty scary even with the tree in between us. It could have run across the yard but no, it went up the tree it must always use. I'm thinking it has babies up in a nest somewhere near. About 10 feet up it stopped, looked down at me and cussed me out. Apparently it didn't like my shrieking as it lept at my face!!!

 

[CarriBrown]

We had so many that we resorted to blowing up their tunnels with bottle rockets. Now we see them on other parts of the property, but not in the chicken coop!
The weird thing is that we had a problem with rats about a year back, and the chickens would attack and kill the rats. However, they don't mind the squirrels.

 

[robinaggie]

I'd rather have squirrels eating the feed than raccoons eating the chicks. Make sure your pen is secure.

 

[Henrietta23]

Agreed. I just hate paying to feed these things. We had rats two summers ago. That was worse. I've had chickens kill moles but these rats only went into the coop in the daytime when the chickens were off in the yard somewhere else. It was scary how smart they were. There were only three but it took us a month to kill them all. The chickens don't seem to mind the squirrels here either. Oh and ours don't tunnel. They live in the trees. These are gray squirrels. Are the ones in CA a different type?