What do you do about MILITANT squirrels?

[macdoogle2]

Just added a couple of kittens/cats to my run. They get along great with the chickens and vice versa. I've had problems with squirrels for years. I'm hoping the cats will hunt and kill or at least deter.

 

[Funky Chooks]

Do you usually get a lot of figs before the squirrel problem?

It might be cheaper to just buy the figs from the store, rather than paying out money for pets control stuff like traps and ammo + the time you will have to spend doing all that stuff (which will be a long time as the little devils will keep breeding to replace their numbers.

The only sure way of getting their population down is to get that neighbour to stop feeding them. But I guess he will be really upset as he seems to really like them.

We would have had a huge number of figs, but they came in like an army. The trouble is, they love to chew right through the tip of the stem, make the fruit fall and then it rots on the ground. They eat very little of the fallen fruit in favor of chewing the tops of the fresh ones. We are glad to shell out the expense after putting up with them for too long. Lower numbers is what we are going for, not total removal.