A bit squirrely???

[timer lady]

Not sure if that's the correct spelling or not. Whatever.

I've added a couple of feeders to my back yard bird sanctuary - mostly to feed the squirrels. I feed them the cheap bird seed. I also put out cobs of corn for them to munch on & stay away from my bird feeders. So far it's working.

Saying that, with all the corn my little friends have gone thru & in turn buried in my yard I noticed yesterday that I have about a dozen corn stalks growing & they are getting fairly high. You'd think these squirrels would have the common courtesy to take the seeds in one of my neighbors yards & bury them or just eat them for goodness sake.

You feed birds, you feed squirrels. My squirrels are pigs. Absolutely no manners.

 

[flutterby]

My mom finds corn and sunflowers growing in the strangest places. They have enough around here that they don't bother my feeder. Yet.

 

[GoingNorth]

It could be worse. Years ago they used to use hemp seeds in bird food.

I used to have to stay on top of the backyard marijuana crop constantly.

 

[hearts and roses]

Well, at least you can feed the birds and squirells! We have so many bear running around that we can't leave any food out except in the middle of winter! The bears will simple tear it down or knock it over, break metal - whatever they have to do to get at the feed.

 

[GoingNorth]

We have the same issues with bears in the more rural areas of the small town I live in.

I live in a mobile home park and our big issue here with putting up birdfeeders is that the raptors home in on the birds using the feeders and bath.

I tried the first couple of years I was up here, since given our climate our birds need all the help in the winter they can get.

Unfortunately, the goldfinches love the thistle seed I was putting out, but the raptors love the goldfinches and other birds.

Chickadees and their relatives get so tame so quickly that they are at risk due to free roaming predators.

 

[Abbey]

It could be worse. Years ago they used to use hemp seeds in bird food.

I used to have to stay on top of the backyard marijuana crop constantly.

HAHAHA...You were probably the hit of the neighborhood kids. (no pun intended)

One of the coolest things to watch is a squirrel twirler. It's a four pronged thing you nail to a tree with a corn cob on each end. Those buggers will nearly spin themselves to death trying to get the corn.

Abbey

 

[timer lady]

Abbey, my squirrel feeder is a twirly one; the other feeder works like a bugee cord but can only take one cob of corn. I refilled those things on Sunday & the corn is about gone.

The blue jays are helping.

 

[GoingNorth]

I had one twirly one and one "cube" made of corn and gelatine to bind it. That sat in a wired feeder much like the ones you see used for feeding suet blocks.

I'm very tempted to give it another try for this winter. You can get suet blocks now that have bits of fruit mixed in along with mealworms and/or crickets and the like.

husband found out something very interesting about keeping non-avian critters out of bird food.\

Turns out that "hot" pepper tastes very sweet to birds and they love the stuff. They don't get the "burn" effect we mammals get from chile peppers.

I can't remember the name of the products but years back when we had the wildlife garden in the back of our house, husband and I used the spiced foods and believe me, the squirrels were history after the first bite or two.

 

[pepperidge]

We put cayenne pepper in our chicken feed to keep the squirrels from eating it. Apparently it works. Might try putting some in the bird food.
You're lucky, our chipmunks eat almost any flowers I plant in the garden. Very depressing.

 

[Star*]

The correct spelling of squirrelly according to me wee Irish Mother is

TREE RAT.

 

[GoingNorth]

To this inner-city kid, a skinned and cleaned squirrel looks A LOT like a rat.

Tasty though.

 

[Abbey]

To this inner-city kid, a skinned and cleaned squirrel looks A LOT like a rat.

Tasty though.

Ack. I guess that's why I don't eat meat. Had a possum before, though.

Abbe

 

[mstang67chic]

Star.....EW.

My step-mom has a few bird feeders and has also had corn growing around the area. The funny thing though is this year she's had a few sunflowers sprout up. Most of them were in the area where the feeders were last year (they lost that tree this winter during an ice storm) but there are a few further out in the yard. Someone must have been trying to stash some seeds back. The neat thing about the sunflowers are that they aren't the ones with one big flower at the top. These are amazing....they have multiple flowers up and down the stem and one had over 30.

Linda...maybe next year if the corn starts sprouting early enough....let it grow and see what you get! LOL If nothing else...maybe you'll get a few free cobs for the birds and tree rats.

 

[susiestar]

We have a big bird feeder right on the edge of our front porch. We had the most interesting mix of sunflowers, wheat and a bunch of other things growing there. It really looked cool.

I am not a squirrel fan. We lived in a house with four huge (over 100 yrs old) trees. 2 maple and 2 oak. The squirrels hated us. They would throw acorns at Freckles and us. They hit us an astounding amount of the time. Then they would double or triple team the poor cat. Freckles was so traumatized by them that a PICTURE of a squirrel or seeing one on tv would send her hiding under a bed crying her eyes out! It took about four years after we moved to get her past that.

Now the squirrels don't bug us much. Too much interesting stuff to eat at the neighbors - several of them have livestock and two feed their small kids most meals outside. The squirrels clean up on what the picky eaters throw on the ground, LOL! Their mom still doesn't believe that they are throwing their food on the ground, even as she SEES the critters all flocking to her yard as soon as she starts to feed the kids.