The DEFEEDER - Make Your Hanging Bird Feeder Squirrel Proof.
The DeFeeder (creative, cheesy word construction out of defeat and bird feeder)
I love squirrels, but bird food is expensive. Those little fuzz brains are pure artists, when comes plotting problem solutions. You can see them think and evaluating the situation. They are also not giving up easily, when they fail at their first attempt; and they learn as they go - very admirable!
You can turn any hanging bird feeder into a DeFeeder, at a very minimal price, if you can create the right conditions.
The squirrels will still get enough food from the seeds, the birds are throwing overboard.
I assure can you, no squirrel has been harmed in my attempt to keep them out of my bird feeder.
I love squirrels, but bird food is expensive. Those little fuzz brains are pure artists, when comes plotting problem solutions. You can see them think and evaluating the situation. They are also not giving up easily, when they fail at their first attempt; and they learn as they go - very admirable!
You can turn any hanging bird feeder into a DeFeeder, at a very minimal price, if you can create the right conditions.
The squirrels will still get enough food from the seeds, the birds are throwing overboard.
I assure can you, no squirrel has been harmed in my attempt to keep them out of my bird feeder.
List of things I used:
The basic idea, would apply to any type of hanging feeder: give the squirrel just ONE way to get to it. Once that is accomplished, a simple disk, hung directly above the feeder, large enough to reach beyond the edge of the feeder, when fully tilt, will do the trick.
The disk can be out of any material, as long as it does not provide too much traction.
All that was left to do, was to drill a center hole into my black disk and into the kid's snow saucer. Then I fished the hanging line of the feeder through the holes of the two disks.
Now, the squirrels will have to step out onto the disk to get to the seeds. The disk will tilt under their weight. If this does not make them glide off, they still don't have anything to hold onto, when they dry to navigate the edge. Squirrels that try to swing themselves around to the feeder, find the feeder too out of reach and fall off, which does not stop them from trying again, of course.
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The 10 min video to squirrels and the DeFeeder in action. It's quite funny. There is nothing happening the forst 2: 25 min. So scroll in, using the progress time bar by about 2min and 25 secs. Look for that squirrel assessing the chances from various locations, before making the first attack attempt. As I said before, none of them got hurt, even though it may look like that for a sec. The feeder is about 10' above the ground.
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2 of 128 comments
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we just shoot the squirrels.. sorry
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Loved your "drama" music. Squirrels are funny. They are pretty greedy though. I have two that I feed out of a dish on the ground..sunflowed seeds. Great video. Thanks. I love your grey squirres. We had one here. Haven't seen him since our tree split in have from the weight of snow. (Colorado)
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Hilarious!!! Love how he fell but got right back up, trying again!! Great idea!!
I noticed that the squirrel under the feeder was enjoying the birdseed that appears to have spilled on the lawn.
Do you see much spillage when you added the disk? Is there a way to hang the feeder in a way that it doesn't tip the bird feede?
Did they ever get to the feeder?