Nature has a way of taking care of something like this, but you have created an artificial situation by providing them with a steady and easily available food supply. More food, less work to get it means increased populations.

If you stopped all of the feeding, your squirrels might have a very hard time surviving as they head into winter.

I have commented on this to some of our "neighbors" (out here that can be more than a mile away). They all have a lot more squirrels this year and they dont feed the birds. We had a bumper crop of acorns last year and a fairly mild winter. If that is duplicated this year we are going to be knee deep in the critters next year. I know the feeders may help some of them get fattened up easier, but it surly can not account for such a drastic area wide increase. I guess I am looking for good amunition to argue with Hubby on why he should NOT hunt them.

Hi Lisa,

They are food for owls, hawks, foxes, etc. If you stop feeding them, most will succumb to predators in the winter and feed nature, as they are supposed to. If he puts pellets in them, he is taking food away from juvenile hawks and owls that need the easy pickings of young squirrels in the winter.

Also, the pellets are likely lead, and when the squirrels go off to die, if predators do eat the, the predators will die from lead poisoning by ingesting the pellets.

AH HA Elly! Thanks, thats perfect! We do have 2 new baby red tails this year. You know come to think of it our hawk population is also way up this year. I am hoping to get a glimps of the Great Horned owl I saw/heard in the dark last year. So far the only argument I had come up with was "what are you going to do with the ones you shoot?" I dont know how to cook squirrel. He knows the Native American in me would realy frown on killing anything that was not going to be put to good use. Now I can argue the lead point because I know he would have said he would leave them for the large vulture population that seems to have taken up residence nearby. Thanks!
(how is your Mom?)
Lisa

We don't live in the country, but suburbia, and we do have a lot of trees. However, I've never seen this much "squirrel activity". Squirrels are rodents and I know that the Vitamin K in dog poop attracts rats. Would that also be true of squirrels?

We live on a farm in NC. About 150 acres. We have 7 bird feeding stations and the squirrels love the food below. The problem is there are a limited amount of natural predators here. Just around the house there are about 12 to 14 squirrels and another who knows how many around the farm. I shoot them but only about 3 - 5 per year. This year i took 3. I don’t eat squirrels and not looking to add any meat to my diet so we leave them lay in the woods to become food for a scavenger. The population is not hindered by the natural predators or increased by the food supply (ie. bird seed) because we live in the middle of hundreds of oak, walnut and popular trees. It seems to work well so and has for the hundred years our family has owned this farm. I’m told they were harvesting squirrels many years ago