A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2006 "This" is why **Plastic** bird feeders just won't work

I know I'm alone in this but chipmunks and squirrels need love too. Great pics starla thanks for sharing.

I LOVE it when squirrels come to my feeders. After owning this house for four years I finally got squirrels this year; TWO of them; and I think they are breeding in my yard......YAY!

Here are some picture of my two new renters:

SQUIRREL AND STARLING



SAUNTERING ALONG

Oh I LOVE my squirrels! We have somuch fun watching them. BUT they will EAT a plastic feeder clean through, so now we make sure to have something more durable AND feeders specificaly for them.

What neat pictures Starla and Thornius! Thanks for sharing them. Of course, it was ruined.

Squirrels teeth never stop growing so they have to continually gnaw to keep them from getting too long. I had some chew an open wooden feeder just for the gnaw of it. They could sit in it with the seed, chew chew chew.

I had a customer in yesterday who wanted a squirrel proof feeder. The one I first showed him is $40. Well that was too much for him. So whats he going to do? Go buy a cheapy $10 one that'll get ruined and replace it 5 times in 1 year? Well now he'l heve spent $50 and still not have a feeder for the next year
Any squirrel proof feeder that really works is going to cost a bit more.
And remember, gray squirrels can jump 4 feet straight up, so a baffle has to be more than 4 feet up or he'll jump right over it. And they van jump 15 feet across, from a tree or building to the top of a feeder.

Starla,
Can you do us a greatttttt big favor and go
back to your photobucket account and resize that gi~ganto picture... We love the picture, but those who have dial up sometimes have to wait wayyyyyyy tooooooo long to enjoy it.

Also, a hint for you...
Take a sheppards' hook, stand it in the middle of the lawn *nothing around it at alllll so critters can jump to it* but take some vaseline and grease up a good amount of the middle of the pole...

I know how out of control those critters can get,
for two years I lived in a house smack dab in the middle about 100 oak trees, and they were many, many, manyyyyyy wanting to eat my birdfeeders themselves..*chewed right thru them to get at the yummies inside FASTERRRR*

Ok I resized it...hope thats better!

That's much better Starla!

Cool pictures!!!

I used to have a squirrel here....then my neighbors cut down the tree it lived in and I haven't noticed anymore since then! It was so funny watching it run across the chain link fence to the birdbath to get a drink.

I saw a British Red Squirrel on a LIVE feeder cam in Scotland last night, Loz.

Here is a pic I got some kind of woodpecker
not sure what kind
hope u can see him
bettyboop1948

Your Woodpecker appears to be a male Red-Bellied Woodpecker to me from what I can tell. Do a Google Image Search on, "Red-Bellied Woodpecker" to see if that is what you saw.... When in doubt, Google it!

I thought I had fooled our squirrels when I got a new feeder that had an outer piece made of metal that was on springs; the weight of the squirrel pulled the metal piece down, closing the holes so they couldn't get food. So what did they do? Hung by their back feet from a nearby limb, and just reached in and got a snack! We had five out there one morning -- one in the tree throwind down the food, and four on the ground scarfing it up!