We are raising a family of squirrels - help

hansolo

Songster
8 Years
Mar 7, 2011
179
27
136
Fremont, CA
I have planted a small patch I call the chicken patch that has lettuce, kale, and sprouts of alfafa, radish, clove and such next to the chicken coop. We wired with 4 feet and harvest for our chickens. I have noticed that somebody has been eating the lettuces and kales. Today I caught one squirrel breakfast in the chicken patch and husband discovered a family of 5 living under our shed, which is about 20-30 feet away.

Does anyone else has squirrel problems? What do you do? Feed them separate food? How do you discourage them from eating chicken food? Add hot peppers to the feed? Should I be worried about diseases? They are not afraid of our chicks and the birds don't care about them.
 
We feed our squirrels whole grain corn, and my dad has a stash of walnuts that he puts in the squirrel feeder occasionally. They also eat from our bird feeders. I really don't know how to discourage them from eating something though.
 
Oh, yeah, squirrels are so bad about eating little vegetable sprouts. Last spring they mowed down my chard and broccoli seedlings within a couple days after transplanting. I've heard that some people feed their squirrels (or crows) just to keep them away from the garden- you could buy sunflower seeds or something (hopefully cheap) that will be tastier to the squirrels than your garden, and place it near the shed to distract them from the chicken food. Good luck!
 
May not be the answer you are looking for...............but I encourage our BC to chase and catch squirrels. She works very hard to keep them away from the chickens.


Ground squirrels will steal eggs, steal and kill chicks............not to mention the chicken food they eat, steal and stash - plus the mess they make.
 
We usually put out poison for the ground squirrels because they always want to go under the house, but we feed the regular old tree squirrels. Of course, the only garden veggies we've done lately are tomatoes, so we don't really have to worry about squirrels invading the garden. My dad also encourages our dog to chase squirrels, but I think that's only because it amuses him to watch the dog go bouncing off through the woods barking like a psycho. He also celebrates if our dog actually trees a squirrel, and my dad tells him that he's gonna take him squirrel hunting in the fall.
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Ours are tree squirrels, I think, they have no stripes.
How do I encourage our chicks to chase them?
The squirrels are not even afraid of me.
I am thinking putting spicy peppers into the feed since we have a tiny flock.
I dun know what to do with the seedlings... They are fenced off with 4 feet chicken wires but some how the squirrels still get in.
 
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Maybe you could electrify it or put some netting over the top. Squirrels are extremely good climbers, so they're probably just climbing over the wire. You know they're tree squirrels if they have big bushy tails. The ground variety has a little stumpy tail.
 
Yeah pretty sure ours are tree squirrels.
So basically they are here to stay we have no choice but to adopt them?
what about diseases? Should we worry about chicks getting bad things from them?
 

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