Any ideas on how to rid squirrel eating pumpkins? My town friend and neighbors are all losing their pumpkins. They have tried laundry baskets, squirrel repellant, coating pumpkins with polyurethane. Can't shoot a gun in town.
The best method would be to stop the silly practice of placing food items in your yard to rot while there are starving kids in Africa. Feeding wildlife is never a good idea, as wildlife will become accustomed to it, and in some cases dependent on it. Over time, multiple generations of squirrels have been conditioned to look at the orange things on people's porches as a food source. With any luck, if you keep it up, you can get a bear checking all of your porches regularly. Pumpkins. Most ridiculous thing I've ever seen. Whole swaths of farm land are gobbled up to grow pumpkins so that they can rot in some city person's lawn. Sorry, rant over.
Now if you are growing pumpkins, you have reason to go around the neighborhood and steal people's decorations, so that they don't cause pumpkin dependence in the resident squirrels. You can make all the pie you have lost in your garden from your stupid neighbor's pumpkins. There are some really good squirrel traps on the market. Korro works good. It was designed for bush possums in NZ, but is super on squirrels. Watch your fingers and pets though. A couple korro traps and you could keep your freezer full of meat in most urban areas.
That's terrible.
But back to the rodents and pumpkins...are your friends sure it is squirrels damaging the pumpkins?
I thought squirrels were what had topped off my beautiful cucumber plants in May and said squirrels continued their destruction by eating the flowers off of my zucchini plants. No, it was rats. We tried using a pellet gun but there was only a dramatic injury and some screaming -- from the rat, I swear I felt like I was watching a cartoon, lots of flipping and flopping around, then a very hasty retreat under the deck. It was an injury only though. Hubs shot one a couple weeks later, same result. Why no death? Someone dropped the next pellet, couldn't get things going right, again, cartoon time. Sorry I'm not more help than that. Fun to share my story though.
So, yeah, with putting poison out, you risk poisoning cats and dogs, which is WRONG. If they get a hold of a rat that has been poisoned, you know they risk problems too.
Knowing what I know now, if I thought it was rats, I would get a dog that enjoys ratting. Our current dog seems skeptical of the rat scent.
Otherwise, trapping and releasing elsewhere is not the best idea either. Squirrels are territorial and nobody wants more squirrels, do they?
I don't know how determined you are but when I lived in town and had trouble with squirrels taking over our bird feeders I used a big rat trap baited with peanut butter.
I know it was lethal, but they were gluttons and would stop until they dumped all the seed and ran off the birds.
A 10 penny nail thru the bottom sticking up ensured it would work the first time. The thing is, it only took one to scare the others to new territory.
Not pleasant, but effective.
Buy a decent air gun and you should be able to kill squirrels. It is done all the time and I can point you in the right direction to talk to people who do it every squirrel hunting season.
when you need to take care of a few pests or want to have a fun day of small game hunting, but can’t disturb or endanger other folks around you, an air rifle is the most simple and effective answer. Here are 4 of the most popular and best air rifles for squirrel hunting on the market (though, there are countless more online for you to ogle at)
Crosman Recruit Air Rifle
Gamo Whisper Silent Cat Rifle
Ruger Air Magnum Rifle
Benjamin Varmint Rifle
All but the Benjamin is a 117 cal rifle although the Ruger cn also be bought in 22 cal form with the benjamin.
These rifles in 177 cal produce 1200 FPS velocities for squirrel killing power.
Buy a decent air gun and you should be able to kill squirrels. It is done all the time and I can point you in the right direction to talk to people who do it every squirrel hunting season.
when you need to take care of a few pests or want to have a fun day of small game hunting, but can’t disturb or endanger other folks around you, an air rifle is the most simple and effective answer. Here are 4 of the most popular and best air rifles for squirrel hunting on the market (though, there are countless more online for you to ogle at)
Crosman Recruit Air Rifle
Gamo Whisper Silent Cat Rifle
Ruger Air Magnum Rifle
Benjamin Varmint Rifle
All but the Benjamin is a 117 cal rifle although the Ruger cn also be bought in 22 cal form with the benjamin.
These rifles in 177 cal produce 1200 FPS velocities for squirrel killing power.
Oh the joys of city living, so thankful we live in the country. Against the law for them to shoot ANY kind of weapon including air, pellet, bb gun and even toy guns! One guy said he couldn't get a gun shipped to his house. This is Lincoln, NE. So guess she will have to try the rat traps. We have to stay on top of gun rights.
I'd put them inside a box or a large piece of pipe to help keep birds and other non-target species from tripping them. Squirrels don't mind entering small spaces.
It would be awkward to explain to a neighbor why their dog has a rat trap hanging off his tongue
Or you can use a live trap with a piece of apple with peanut butter on it. Then you can free any animals that are accidently trapped (like the neighbors white cat) and dispatch the rats with a pretty tail at your convenience.
Ps- Don't tell the neighbor after freeing the cat. At least he was smart enough not to get in the trap again.
An outside cat or two works wonders. Red squirrels used to terrorize us. Rabbits used to find their way into my garden (and then my stew pot). But no more since we have a mouser or two around. The down-side is you can say goodbye to some of the birds that used to frequent your property. But for us, getting rid of the damaging and disease spreading mice and their droppings was worth it.
When I was working a large veg garden, I made some "whole corn" holders that squirrels could sit on and eat out of. Setting these away from my garden and veggies were saved.
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