Maggie's Farm

Squirrels? I have developed a squirrel-proof arrangement of which I am inordinately proud, as it works—I no longer buy birdseed to feed rodents. I used four empty 2-liter soda bottles, some s-hooks, and some 14 ga. stranded electrical wire.

I drilled 3/16" holes in the center of the cap and the center of the bottom of each soda bottle, and strung them on the wire so they are in two pairs, each pair with bottoms together.

My research (several minutes at google) indicates that a gray squirrel can jump 4' upwards, 5' laterally, and will not voluntarily attempt more than 9' downwards.

I put overhand knots in the wire to hold the bottles together at locations that met or exceeded the jumping parameters when the wire was run from my back porch to a nearby tree, perhaps 50' away. I also took care that the wire was high enough to pass a pickup truck with loaded ladder racks. Three S-hooks put on the wire between the pairs of bottles using a couple half hitches hold two seed feeders (one for big seeds, one for little) and a suet feeder.

It works. No losses to squirrels for a couple years now. The bottles roll if the squirrel tries to cross and dumps them on the ground. I use a boat hook to lift the feeders off of and on to the S-hooks.

JMM—the doves here hang out on an amateur radio antenna wire much higher up and await their chance. Then, when no or few birds are on the ground under the feeders, yep, they swoop in and clean up everything that has fallen to the ground. The cardinals have a similar MO, but come in low, hang on a tree branch for a second, and then go in.