Cold weather squirrels.

[.36Rooster]

I've considered putting out a salt block for the deer, but they're really fussy about that out west with cwd these days.

 

[Springerpanhead]

I have 4 large Cedars in front of my house that I planted some 50 years go. Firstly, I like the trees. Secondly, they provide immediate shelter for a wide variety of song birds that I spend more money feeding than I spend feeding my horse. Thirdly, the squirrels don’t just come down the trees and eat, it’s up and down and up and down and round and round and more up and down. All the while their claws shredding he bark on the lower 5 ft ot the trees, and sometimes deliberately stripping the bark to build their nests. I am surrounded by about 2000 acres of dense hardwood forrest. The squirrels that live in the woods can stay there forever as far as I‘m concerned. But having explained in a previous post about relocating squirrels. The ones destroying my Cedar trees are SOS period.

 

[.36Rooster]

Oh I don't blame you one bit, don't get listen to me. I'm just part part hunter and part wildlife nut. I've never been accused of being sane by any means.

When I was a kid, by the way, my grandparents offered me $5.00 a squirrel for the same reason. They had 8 or 9 birdfeeders and a half dozen suet cakes. I think the $150.00 they shelled out by the end of squirrel season might have been a bit more than they expected. Those hickory bottoms produce a lot of squirrels! Shoot one and the next slot on the totem pole moves up and takes its place.

 

[Col. Batguano]

I relocated a bunch this year too. 26 of them. After 3 days of quiet, I have one back in the attic again. I tend to think relocating them in the summer time they just "find a way" to get comfortable in their new surroundings. In the winter they don't know where the food is, and are more motivated to "get back home". It's a lost cause though. Removing squirrels in the city from your yard is like trying to lower the Ocean level in the Atlantic by putting the water in to the Pacific.

 

[S.Kenton]

i relocated 24 of the squirrels last year. cost me a bunch of diesel fuel to trek them 20 miles away.
my dad caught one in the trap and painted it's tail orange and dumped it off at my sisters place 7 miles away
and it was back at their bird feeder in 3 days.

I would relocate them to my stomach...

 

[Springerpanhead]

I would relocate them to my stomach...

As I write this there is a Red Shouldered Hawk in the front yard doing just that

 

[Springerpanhead]

I relocated a bunch this year too. 26 of them. After 3 days of quiet, I have one back in the attic again. I tend to think relocating them in the summer time they just "find a way" to get comfortable in their new surroundings. In the winter they don't know where the food is, and are more motivated to "get back home". It's a lost cause though. Removing squirrels in the city from your yard is like trying to lower the Ocean level in the Atlantic by putting the water in to the Pacific.

Please see my previous post on this thread about relocating squirrels

 

[hanshi]

The only things I've ever shot in my yard are starlings!

 

[Zonie]

Lol. I'll tell you guys. Deer or squirrels or anything in the yard, I leave alone. I enjoy having them around. Here is mostly just deer though since I'm on the edge of the prairie. I've gotta drive a couple up into the black hills to get into some squirrels.

My yard is also a "safe zone" for critters.
Here in Phoenix, we don't get many except for the lizards. Lately, I found a very small cotton tail rabbit in my back yard. He's safe from me there. Using my best Yosemite Sam voice, I call him "Waskally Wabbit! Making footieprints on my desert.".

 

[Rock Home Isle]

Here is -20's, Fahrenheit

What are some of you guy's strategies for cold weather squirrels.

I've got two myself. When the Temps are 10-35, and there's still warm days, hunt the warm days. If there's no warm days, hunt the days with sun and low wind, from 10 am to 2pm. If there's no sun, hunt the days with no wind.

They've always got to eat eventually, and they're basically critters running around with no clothes on...so my philosophy has always been that they will hold out for a day or two until there is either a break in wind, clouds, or cold. And only make brief forays from the den for food during the worst weather, and spend the better days gorging themselves.

But when it's bad, cold, cloudy weather for days, eventually they are going to have to strike a medium, and hit a baseline of an even amount of foraging and den time....plus the scurring about burns energy and creates heat in their fur coat the same way it does for us, so scurry and feed when cold, and den when tired and get back out to scurry and feed and warm again. That's the same pattern I find myself gravitating to when winter tent camping in this weather...

I am a still hunter. However, I do see lots of merit in following squirrel tracks to a place where they start crossing their own trail every which way and then sitting and waiting. Often that's near a den and once you kill one, you're either done or cold from sitting. Hardly a good way to get a limit.

My personal experience is that squirrels don't move much when the temperature dips into the negatives. For the most part they'll stay in their bedding for a couple days and try to wait it out.

They're pretty active just before a storm hits, but they tend to hole up once it’s really cold. After a day or two...if it’s still pretty cold, hunger will drive them out to scavenge for food. At this time they'll be most active at mid-day when temperatures are warmest.

Find they're feeding areas, closest to where they are bedding...they'll hit those places first. Show up early, put your back against a stout tree and patiently wait.

 

[nhmoose]

When it's cold out I release a Jack Russel Terrier, she handles them when they are in her yard.

 

[Springerpanhead]

My yard is also a "safe zone" for critters.
Here in Phoenix, we don't get many except for the lizards. Lately, I found a very small cotton tail rabbit in my back yard. He's safe from me there. Using my best Yosemite Sam voice, I call him "Waskally Wabbit! Making footieprints on my desert.".

You need to get that gun on the English sparrows as well as the starlings Get rid of those invasive murderous little stinkers and you will find your yard blessed with many varieties of beneficial and beautiful birds. Personally, I very much like rabbits and very much enjoy watching them hopping around the lawn on moonlit nights. Only thing is, Coyotes like them too, and our area is overrun with them. They have decimated the Wild Turkey population and really raised hell with the Deer and Rabbit populations as well as having taken many of the neighbors pet cats and small dogs. My yard is a sanctuary for all animals except destructive ones such as Coyotes and Racoons or animals that carry diseases that threaten the wellbeing of my horses, such as Opossoms which carry Equine Protozoan Myelitis (EPM) and again Racoons which carry Racoon Round Worm. It’s great to be a compassionate idealist, but it really doesn’t do the environment nor you livestock any good.

 

[Col. Batguano]

You need to get that gun on the English sparrows as well as the starlings Get rid of those invasive murderous little stinkers and you will find your yard blessed with many varieties of beneficial and beautiful birds. Personally, I very much like rabbits and very much enjoy watching them hopping around the lawn on moonlit nights. Only thing is, Coyotes like them too, and our area is overrun with them. They have decimated the Wild Turkey population and really raised hell with the Deer and Rabbit populations as well as having taken many of the neighbors pet cats and small dogs. My yard is a sanctuary for all animals except destructive ones such as Coyotes and Racoons or animals that carry diseases that threaten the wellbeing of my horses, such as Opossoms which carry Equine Protozoan Myelitis (EPM) and again Racoons which carry Racoon Round Worm. It’s great to be a compassionate idealist, but it really doesn’t do the environment nor you livestock any good.

wat about waskiwi wabbits?

 

[Springerpanhead]

wat about waskiwi wabbits
Plant all my vegetables these days in tall raised beds where da wabbits can’t weach em. They can eat all the clover they want.

 

[Springerpanhead]

Actually I deliberately create brush piles around the perimeter so da wabbits stand some chance against the owls and hawks. Also I probably could have gotten myself a new Mercedes with what I have spent on night vision equipment over the years to keep the Coyotes in check. That’s why I’m still driving a 1954 1 ton Chevy flatbed, well one of the reasons anyway.

 

[toot]

like them or hate them, they are a special kind of RODENT!