Mine are sooooooooooooo old, they came w/ a *life-time* guarantee with them. Twice now, I had them replace the bottom perches on one particular model. I give up. :)
Posted on 12/22/2016 4:53:45 PM PST by metmom
Couple of zip ties should hold it in place.
Me too. But I don’t think you can really beat them. They learn, and overcome.
I had one of those feeders that closes up if the squirrel puts its weight on it. After a while, we were constantly finding the squirrel trapped inside of it and having to release him.
I saw the slinky video a few days ago I have got to try it! I usually mix Crisco shortening with a very generous amount of red pepper and smear it on the Sheppard’s pole. They eventually get to the feeder but its hilarious to watch when they get a taste of red pepper.
Mine are sooooooooooooo old, they came w/ a *life-time* guarantee with them. Twice now, I had them replace the bottom perches on one particular model. I give up. :)
Oh, I don't want to beat 'em.
But 120 volts of house current hot-wired into the post will damn well fry them.
Our squirrels jump from a standing start and avoid the greased pole all together. {{{{GRRR!}}}
It's demeaning when a critter is smarter than you are. :)
Outstanding. One of the few things I’ve seen that really works
I tried a slinky years ago. It baffled the squirrels for a few days, then they figured it out.
Then there’s the squirrel catapult.
We had one that was constantly chewing on our outdoor Christmas lights. Fortunately for him, the lights were only on at night, while he was sleeping. He ruined a lot of light-strings...
good job MetMom,
Thanks for the laugh.
Here in Port Saint Lucie, just waiting for spring training to start.
I did. I used the 'learn and overcome' technique against them.
It took half a dozen weekends and some time at HomeDepot but I now have a system they cannot overcome.
It's a blast watching them try and fail. Very relaxing. And the birds appreciate it too I'm sure.
The wire the handyman is using is strong stuff and he’s patched the holes with it plus covering some of the soffit. These monsters cling to the screen with their nails and just chew small holes they are able to get through and it’s just normal screening. The only alternative is to have the entire porch rescreened with the tough stuff but oh! my! what an expense that would be and not even at ground level. Maybe the handyman is right - leave the door open for them in the winter to save the screen...Thanks for your reply...
How did you do it?
We trapped 21 this last Summer, and we live in town. We take them waaaay out into the country, although a couple of them died of a nervous breakdown inside the trap. It’s a matter of control, not eradication. Also, we have to hide the trap so that the local hippies/animal rights activists won’t come along and set them free.
A couple made themselves a little home in the roof of our porch, costing us megabucks to repair. They even decorated it with a fake bunch of grapes. If they didn’t have tails people would give them their proper place in society—vermin!
Well...I set up a line between two trees that holds her bird feeders...different seed for different birds, plus suet. The whole thing can be lowered and raised so she can refill the feeders. The squirrels had a field day climbing up the trees and crawling down the line (1/8" poly-propylene). Eventually they chewed through the line and dropped the whole array. That's when I got really p!$$ed.
So...here goes.
A ~30 foot vinyl covered 1/8" cable strung between two trees. On this cable are 8 two liter plastic bottles...caps and bottom drilled for cable to pass. This allows them to spin freely so the squirrels can get no purchase while on them and they fall to the ground...a good 20 foot drop.
At each end about 4 feet from each tree is a roundish baffle of plastic. Old compartmented snack trays. Attached to these towards the trees is an aluminum concave baffle/shield. Think of Captain America's shield only about half the size. These assemblies are anchored to the end bottle on each end. There is another tray baffle after the first bottle. The edges of the aluminum have been cut away in a triangular sawtooth pattern all the way around. Each "tooth" is about 2 inches high. The concave surface faces the tree. Hanging down from each of these shields is a 18" x 30" aluminum oven liner painted olive drab so as not to spook the birds.
On the cable between the trees and these shields is an arrangement of the triangular pieces cut from the shields...roughly 30ga aluminum. Barely visible in the picture below on the right side. They are spaced about one inch apart and are fixed to the cable so they do not move or spin.
This cable is fed through a screw eye on one end to allow the assembly to be lowered and raised after the bird feeders have been refilled. Between each bottle is a carabiner that allows attachment of the bird feeders.
Squirrels have tried to jump from the trees to the feeders but the oven liners block them in mid-flight.
They have tried to traverse the cable to get closer to the feeders but the triangular (and sharpened) aluminum "teeth" do not make for an easy or painless route for the squirrels.
I have observed their many attempts to defeat this arrangement but after about 2 weeks of trying, they have given up.
This defense was arrived at after about 2 months of trial and error. The toothed aluminum baffles and the aluminum "teeth" on the ends of the cable were the last addition. I went this route because passive defenses were failing. The aggressive part (aluminum teeth) gave them a good incentive to piss off and go try the neighbor's yard.
It looks like Rube Goldberg invented it but it is 100% effective. My wife loves her birds and hates squirrels. Happy wife, happy life. Plus the engineer in me accepted the challenge and won.
LOL! I was thinking ‘Rube Goldberg’ before I even got there.
Very clever; and it really doesn’t look bad. Congratulations!
We just have a balcony feeder now; and we’re up so high, we’ve almost never seen a squirrel. But I’m going to remember this!
-JT
Two died of nervous breakdowns! Well, that certainly breaks my stone cold heart! They are like lice - darting back and forth across the roads which have very little traffic so you could almost call it “country” but it’s just an unincorporated part of a city. They truly are vermin. They can cause so much destruction. We trapped raccoons and skunks in Costa Mesa, CA when we lived there. Animal control would come pick them up but they euthanized the skunks right on the spot. I wonder if there’s such a thing where we live now. Hardly dare to ask...They’re probably protected. We have to keep having holes in our siding patched from woodpeckers and it’s against the law to shoot them too.
I was on the phone with a friend in CA this past summer and she wanted to know if she’d told me about a squirrel they had in their backyard. I think she hung up on me when I couldn’t stop laughing! A squirrel!! His thousands of relatives live in our neighborhood! I don’t aim for them when driving in or out of the neighborhood but wouldn’t cry if one didn’t make it across the road.
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