Keeping Squirrels From Your Bird Feed

Every true DIYer has built a bird feeder in their time, whether it's a simple mesh tube or a complex wooden house with a pool and dinner table. It's such a common and pleasurable piece to make that they have become commonplace in gardens around the country. Unfortunately in Britain, we have become inundated with a ravenous grey squirrel population who seem to have become lazy since they ousted the red squirrels. Rather than gathering nuts and acorns to store for winter, squirrels have come to rely on the unguarded bird feeder in residential gardens. Whilst we're certainly not advocates of depriving an animal of its food source, squirrels can drain an entire feeder before the birds have a chance to.

Squirrels are very feisty and intelligent creatures, so don't worry about them starving if you protect your feed. Unfortunately for us, that makes it even more difficult to squirrel proof our creations. If you design in in a way so that only small birds can access the feed, squirrels will simple scratch and chew at the offending material until the seed is accessible. When you think you've thwarted them by using un-chewable metal, they will try and push the feeder over or swing it to force seed out onto the ground.

Most commercial "squirrel proof bird feeder" use an electric current which is activate when a certain weight is detected on the feeder. Whilst being both dangerous and cruel, you can also eliminate your chances of seeing pigeons, blackbirds and other larger birds in your garden. Even if you were open to this idea, batteries rarely hold up during the harsh British winter and you'll find your feed completely gone by Christmas.

Although most squirrels can't chew through metal, there have been cases of them being able to gnaw their way through it if it leaves exposed corners. Protect your bird feed with domed shape collections of wire mesh and try to get your hands on steel if you can, aluminium doesn't resist the sharp teeth of squirrels quite so well. Unfortunately squirrels chew on hard materials to file and grind their teeth, so even if they may not be actively trying to get to the feed, repeated use by the squirrels will eventually prove accidentally productive for them. The simplest solution to keeping your bird feed squirrel free, is to use safflower seed. The seed from the thistle like flower is despised by the pesky mammals but is a favourite amongst the songbirds you want in your garden.