I can haz sqrl fudz! And I didn’t know the stuff existed till I checked online, and then drove to my local PetSmart to get a bag.
The addition to what I’ve already been feeding my squirrels is dried corn in the product below. I hope they like it. I’ve also been collecting acorns, which they love.
Until about a week ago my squirrels (there are four) ate stuff I put on the windowsill, but now the peanuts and acorns are disappearing entirely, with no shell fragments left. The squirrels are clearly stashing stuff, but not eating anything but sunflower seeds. Mother has swollen teats, implying a second brood, but I haven’t seen them yet.
The bag states that the main aim of buying this stuff is to keep squirrels away from bird feeders. Well, that may be its main use, but doesn’t anybody just like to feed squirrels?
Today I proffered these fudz to the squirrels, and they seem to like them, though I’m sure they’d prefer walnuts. The sunflower seeds went first, and then they started on the corn. I was surprised to see that they actually remove the coating of the dried corn kernel, eating only the inside. I just took this photo (don’t worry; the red is not squirrel scabies, but the reflection of my shirt:
All you need to do to feed squirrels is try to feed birds.
They are like birds of the same feeder.
Hee hee
Yeah, whenever I buy bird seed at the supermarket, I refer to it as “squirrel larvae.”
“The squirrels are clearly stashing stuff”
A couple of years ago we hired a cottage on the west coast of Scotland and there was a bird table in the garden in front of the sitting room window. We put a pile of peanuts on it in the hope of attracting a pine marten (Martes martes) which are present in the woodlands there. We never got a pine marten to come but were entertained by a wood mouse (Apodemus sylvaticus) which came and removed the peanuts one by one in a succession of visits to the table. It (assuming there was not more than one) managed to clear away a large pile of nuts in a short time and presumably stashed them away somewhere in the hedge for later use.
Could the mouse see them or would it have been by smell.
Imagine being able to smell as well as some animals can.
I remember reading an article years ago that humans could be trained to smell a scent track as good as some breeds of dog, but not as good as the best ones.
We are definitely deficient is that department. I remember a remark an old teacher of mine made, to the effect that “there’s a reason we go in the field to watch birds and not to smell mammals.”
I don’t see as many squirrels here in Northwestern Ontario as I did growing up in Toronto. Also they are smaller here for some reason. There are enough of them around to empty my boyfriend’s bird feeder on a pretty regular basis.
Maybe you’re seeing red squirrels?
Thanks. Maybe. I’ll have to take a closer look.
The squirrels around southern Ontario are mostly eastern grey squirrels, Sciurus carolinensis. I’m pretty sure that’s what Jerry has on his window sill. There is also a black subgroup of the species.
They are very successful urban animals and are relatively large. Where they have been introduced in the UK and the Pacific coast of North America, they have displaced the native species.
When my nana visited us from New Zealand, she was disappointed because she thought squirrels would be the size of cats. 🙂
My mother-in-law always referred to them as tree rats. I think I’m glad they aren’t as big as cats.
I had a friend from New Zealand years ago that was terrified of everything that moved in Australia as they have no venomous creatures, and we have the most venomous (as I read recently, the box jellyfish).
He would climb under the table at a pub if a moth flew by.
Ha ha – I was in Cairns during box jellyfish season. No swimming close to shore but it was fine out further.
Goodness, if I knew they were in the water anywhere I would not go in.
If you get a few yards of tentacle on you, you have less than four minutes to live.
According to a recent study, jellyfish are taking over the world.
Marmots are more appreciative.
I’d love to feed marmots, but I don’t speak Chinese.
It’s okay, alpine marmots tend to be multicultural polyglots with a tendency towards snack pluralism.
They sure take their time chewing between bites.
I think I’d watch my fingers!
Marmots are also squirrels. 😉
…that want to be wombats when they grow up.
As for the corn, they pretty much are only interested in the embryo part, as long as there is plenty of food available. Must be where the protein is.
I presume you have never owned a house where squirrels chewed holes and wires and stuff : ) It gets expensive.
There is a brilliant decades-old pair of videos from the UK called “Daylight Robbery”… you could find it on youtube I bet. It’s hilarious; shows all the ways squirrels learn to get past even the most intricate puzzles. If you want some good laughs, look it up.
Then there is the recent fellow who’s written how we should consider eating urban squirrels. “Chicken of the Trees”:
http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/why-eating-squirrels-makes-sense/Content?oid=7215952
Very tongue in cheek but when you consider how these guys multiply, it makes a lot more ecological sense eating wild life that can live off the land : )
Yep Daylight Robbery is on Youtube. Great to watch, I laughed so hard!
As said, before the drought of the ’50s, mother would take the 22 and pop off a couple of squirrels for lunch.
My next door neighbor raised some squirrels, and I would love to have them come over so I could feed them. However, he has a horse, goat, and chickens, and his squirrels get enough of their feed that they don’t need to leave the home place.
They also like maple keys. The local chippy has been cutely eating the keys. Squirrels will eat them as well.
> I just took this photo (don’t worry; the red is not
> squirrel scabies, but the reflection of my shirt:
Polarizing filter on camera’s lens
glare and reflection from window-pane ends.
When I fed squirrels at home in Los Angeles, none of them would touch corn in the squirrel feed. Eventually, I just stuck to inexpensive bird seed with lots of supplemental sunflower seed and the occasional peanut snack.
I used to feed the squirrels corn, but it attracted skunks, so I quit.
There are all kinds of night animals under my feeder. I should rig up a night time camera. I know I’ve seen racoons, possums & skunks.
I had a bunch of baby skunks visit. They were cute as can be — but they were skunks nevertheless.
Interesting that you guys in the US are able to buy a commercial feed that is specially branded as food for wild life. Feeding the wildlife in Australia is generally frowned upon, even the animals around the home.
Of course in Australia, “feeding the wildlife” can be bad for one’s own health for the many case where humans are part of the diet!
It has always amazed me when people claim they are feeding their favourite wildlife because they don’t want them to be hungry. Just see how they crowd around!
More food = more babies = more breeding pairs = more hungry animals. Once the human reaches a limit on how much food they are willing to supply, the population will stabilise and the difference is only that there are more animals, all just as hungry as before.
It might also mean an increase in the number of predators and of disease. Cats definitely learn to stalk the area of the feeder.
Humans.
After moving to a rural property in Oz, I saw a large goanna out the front.
I thought I would give it something to eat, just once to see what it liked.
All I could think of was eggs, so I rolled an egg along the patio and it snatched it up and swallowed it whole.
I was so delighted that I rolled 13 more which is all I had left.
The problem was, the next time it saw me outside, it ran at me and I just got back inside in time.
Moral of the story – don’t feed the wildlife.
I goanna get mor eggzez!
That sounds exciting. 😀
I would be very, very careful if I were you. http://www.scarysquirrel.org/
Yes, some people just like squirrels: http://www.michigansquirrels.com/t-shirts/
It’s hard to squirrel-proof the bird feeders in our back yard, so the birds usually just wait their turn. We had a nice feeder on a very sturdy steel pole with a squirrel-deterrent baffle. Worked fine until the bear came and bent the steel pole 90 degrees to the ground!
Best laid plans…
Indeed! It took me about 20 minutes to get the pole bent back to close-to-straight, which probably made it easier for the bear the second time around. Bear 2: me 0 Game over.
I buy TONS of this stuff. I had a sizable chipmunk population in my yard when I first moved here. I *love* chipmunks so I started putting little bowls of food and water out for them. Of course that brought squirrels and birds so I just started putting more and more food out. My back patio became such a mecca for animals that it finally started attracting hawks. :(((( Now I have no chipmunks but plenty of other wildlife. The hawks still stop by occasionally and when they realize there are no more delectable chipmunks, they settle for a small bird. I would have been perfectly happy to put some purina hawk chow out for them if that had been an option. I hate watching them catch and kill a small animal. I wish I could go back in time and not put as much food out. I doubt I could resist the temptation to occasionally put food out so I could watch the chipmunks – but I wouldn’t put food out there daily.
Squirrels are seriously cute. I remember feeding them when visiting graves at Ohlsdorf Cemetery as a kid. It’s the world’s largest garden cemetery and full of wildlife. It’s a birders paradise.
These squirrels had visiting humans trained well, and would take peanuts and seeds directly from the hand.
It was the same with blue tits, they had learned that people with outstretched hands ment food.
Oh the thrill, when squirrels and tits took the sunflower seeds/peanuts directly from my hand!
I’m glad you got to watch the Daylight Robbery films.
Making connections with wildlife is basic to our nature (well, at least for most people).
I had the chance to show an 80-yr old lady what it’s like to have a bird land on her hand and she was enthralled (a wild chickadee, close relative of your tits). In all her 80 years she had not come close to anything like that. I think part of the magic was that it was a wild bird as opposed to a parakeet or other domestic species. The act of having to stand outdoors quietly for two or three minutes with her arm outstretched, in the cold of winter, added some discomfort and caused her to push her limits more than usual, which was actually probably more memorable than if she’d be simply given a bird on her hand in a comfortable situation. In other words, she had to work for it, and it may have been more valuable for that reason. At least I’d like to think so. Made me feel good that I had afforded that opportunity to her.
Feeding squirrels by hand pleases people too. Only problem is that in the U.S., rabies could be an issue. I remember my mom getting her finger inadvertently sliced by a squirrel she was feeding peanuts to, and we sweated out the rabies possibility for a while.