Showing posts with label squirrel repellents. Show all posts
Showing posts with label squirrel repellents. Show all posts

Squirrel proof bird food: Bird food squirrels hate

Bird food squirrels hate
Amazon's Choice: Blazing hot bird seeds the squirrels will hate
Squirrel repellent food is absolutely way to go approach to squirrel proofing your bird feeder and it's definitely worth of your attention if you want to divert squirrels from stealing bird food.

Let me tell you some science behind it.

The very concept is based on a fact that the birds are able to eat extremely spicy, hot pepper blended food without noticing any difference comparing to regular bird seed (or any need to dial firefighters after the lunch).
On the other side, the squirrels will hate hot food because they just can't stand the taste of it.
This is because the birds don't have hot food receptors in their mouth, while the squirrels do.
So, when a squirrel tastes even a smallest bit of this kind of food it will start acting like most of the people would do: it will start running around in circles feeling the heat rush to the ears and it will finally run away looking for the way to put out the fire... and never to come back.

Oh yes, this works for Mexican squirrels as well :)

Of course, the squirrels don't get hurt permanently. They just learn they are not invited to the feast.

What should one expect from squirrel proof bird food? 


Squirrel proof suet bird food
Amazon's Choice: Squirrel proof suet bird food
Nowadays, the bird food production is highly competitive branch. Having in mind all the advanced methods and expertise used in the bird food production, I suggest we should not go for the second best when choosing top quality squirrel proof bird food with squirrel repellent properties.

What we need is one stop solution for following requirements:
  • Birds must love the food. The food must attract various kind of birds over and over again meaning that all the nutritional needs of the birds must be satisfied using right choice of food ingredients.
  • Squirrels must hate the food: the amount of repellent ingredient within the food must be carefully balanced to deter the squirrels but not to hurt them.
  • All the food ingredients must be 100% natural. The repellent component must be 100% natural as well because the birds ingest it together with the food. 
  • The shape of the squirrel proof bird food must suit your feeder requirements: the food should be available either as squirrel proof bird seed for classic bird feeders, or in the form of squirrel proof suet in case you have suet bird feeder. 
  • Great reviews are more than welcome: if the positive feedback from previous customers is there to support the claim that this squirrel proofing method actually works, then it's definitely good anti-squirrel solution.
           

Homemade squirrel proof bird food


Hot anti-squirrel bird food recipe
Cole's Flaming Seed Sauce
If you are into preparing bird seed mixture according to your own recipe, you could try and add some cayenne pepper powder to it. It should work against the squirrels. Have fun with, do a couple of experiments and try to determine the right proportion of the pepper powder in the seeds.
Still, most of the people people find using Cole's Flaming Seed Sauce more efficient than cayenne powder because the sauce is liquid and stays on the seeds as it dries out.
Surprisingly enough, the sauce does not spoil the seeds and the seeds does not rot under the influence of the liquid from the sauce. 
A bottle of 16 oz of Cole's Flaming Seed Sauce is enough for about 40 pounds of the bird seed (3 tablespoons per 5 pounds of the seed) and it seems like real good bargain to me.

Enjoy!

How Effective Squirrel Repellents Are?

I'll try to make this straight forward: though there are several types of squirrel repellents in the market today and with different approach in anti-squirrel tactics, it seems no single repellent product is powerful enough to keep the squirrels off from bird food all by itself. Therefore, squirrel repellents can not represent stand alone squirrel proof solution, but they can for sure help as an additional protection to your bird feeder.
This conclusion is backed up by hundreds and thousands of customers who reviewed numerous squirrel repellent products available online.
Let's see first how squirrel repellents work.

Repellent types:


1.Ultrasonic repellents - these are small AC or DC powered electronic devices that broadcast sounds inaudible to human ears, but squirrels just can't stand it and run away. Of course, this theory sounds too simple and too good to be true, so here is the catch: most of the ultrasonic repellents are not squirrel selective and would probably scare the hell of the birds as well! And what's even worse - your cat and dog too! Bad news is also that most of those devices are not "exactly inaudible" to humans and that's what you'll notice in the quiet of the night. So, the general conclusion is that ultrasonic repellents are not only squirrel repellents, but more like animal repellents in general. Therefore, I do not recommend this kind of anti-squirrel defense.

2. Chemical repellents - usually based on coyote urine odor, mothball smell, or some modern synthetic chemical compounds, the very  idea of chemical repellents is to chase away the squirrels from your backyard using squirrel hypersensitive sense of smell. But just like ultrasonic repellents, this type is not squirrel selective and it is very dubious how would certain bird species and your pets react in particular. So, would not dare to recommend this type of repellent either.

3. Food repellents - the point is in adding hot tasting additives to birds food and believe it or not - that might be the best squirrel repellent there is! It's because it is proven to be safe for the birds and the squirrels hate it. Here's how it works: bird's organism is set to be completely immune to hot spicy food while the squirrels just hate Mexican food! So unlike the squirrels, the birds don't feel hotness and do not suffer intestinal consequences from ingestion of the repellent. Secondary benefit of using this kind of repellent is that rats, groundhogs, rabbits and similar rodents also hate hot food.
Also, good news is that you can buy either feeder ready food with repellent already added, or repellent only so you can add to the bird food of your choice.

So, I definitely want to recommend following squirrel repellents: