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paulsiu

Making the squirrel work for their food

paulsiu
14 years ago

I feed squirrels to distract them from the feeders, but Squirrels tend to act like giant vacuum cleaners. Anything I put out then to be eaten quickly.

To reduce the rate of feeding, I decided to change the squirrel feeder to a hanging flip lid feeder and hanging it from the same chain I used to hang corn cob.

The feeder is filled with peanuts, their absolutely favorite food. I added a dowel with a perch for them to climb up on. How did this work so far?

Well, the squirrel did not climb up the dowel as a I expected. I guess the dowel is too unstable. In addition, I notice that they can't climb it for some reason. I saw up climb up the dowel and slip down the pole before reaching the top.

They usually get to the feeder from the top by climbing down the chain. The problem is that they usually approach from the top, sit on the lid and wonder why they can't open the lid. Eventually, they did figure it out. They usually open the lid, grab a peanut and run off to feed since it's a little unstable for them to sit around on the platform to eat. The only downside is that they tend to bury peanuts around the yard.

I also hung the house from the bungee to make things more difficult for the squirrels. When the squirrel gets to the house, another squirrel may jump on the corn causing the whole house to shake and knock off the other squirrel. This usually result in an angry squirrel chasing the other squirrel around.

Today, I am going to fill the feeder with sunflower seed instead of peanuts to see what they will do.

Paul

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