Backyard Squirrel Diversion Feeding
Backyard Squirrel Diversion Feeding
Should I feed Squirrels? People ask if they should feed squirrels and other wildlife in their backyards to help keep squirrels out of their bird feeders. We say yes. In our personal backyards, we feed the squirrels and it does help keep them from frantically trying to get to our bird feeders and eat all the seed, let alone chew up and destroy expensive feeders. Understand that squirrels will always try to get to bird feeders so a feeder must be baffled or squirrel proof, but baffles and squirrel proof feeders are a separate topic. Here we are just going to talk about our systems of diversion feeding for the bushy tailed tree rats.
The above photo shows our main squirrel diversion feeder. It is a ground bird feeder table - you can shop a selection of these to purchase at: Ground Bird Feeder Trays. A ground table is fantastic for feeding squirrels and also helps to keep bully birds such as blue jays, grackles and starlings away from smaller songbird feeding stations. Again, the topic of bully birds is another post altogether, but we do have jays in particular feed from this table, as well as juncos and rufus sided towees who prefer to feed off the ground. These species rarely land on our elevated feeders.
The food we put out on our ground tray table is cracked corn, which is inexpensive. We blend the cracked corn with a cheap bird seed mix that has a lot of milo in it. The cheap mix is just about useless to attract songbirds since it is full of fillers, but great for squirrels and doesn’t cost a fortune to keep food out which the squirrels plow through. Milo is a filler food that the birds don’t care for in general but squirrels love. The seed mix does contain white proso millet which appeals to junco, sparrows, indigo buntings, also the mourning doves like it, so it has uses. Our advice on these food types is to purchase them at a local shop that sells livestock feed if you have one in the area. Cracked corn for used as chicken feed is cheap cheap cheap. (Uggh, no pun intended. Seriously). Just make sure that it’s straight cracked corn without diet supplements.
Our ground tray feeder is made of recycled plastic. We are absolutely crazy about it!! It is made of recycled plastic milk jugs and by golly is it easy to clean. It’s not often that we will recommend a feeder that costs more than other feeders, but the recycled plastic is honestly going to last so much longer than wood that the extra cost is well worth it. The legs don’t rot on the ground, the mesh screen comes out, and if the tray itself gets cruddy you can use a mild bleach solution to clean it. Note: remove screen before using bleach - don’t ever bleach metal!! This feeder is terrific for helping us keep jays, pigeons, doves, and other feeding hogging birds out of our songbird feeders. It serves more than just squirrels.
In fact, we replaced our wooden ground feeder table with the recycled plastic because it is so much lower maintenance. The wood on our ground table had aged well but the plastic is not porous like wood, so grime does not suck into the plastic like it does wood. We haven’t got enough food to say about this feeder. Here is one that you can buy a Ground Feeding Table.
Some models do come in a version with a roof, however we personally do not use a roof because we are in a drought ridden area and have little weather past hot or hotter. If it ever rains again we can put a roof on our table feeder. A roof will help keep the food out of the weather but we prefer the visibility of an open table. You may have a different opinion if it rains often in your area, or you have snow in the winter. In the case of winter feeding and snow, the roof is handy. It’s detachable so you can remove the roof in the summer if you wish. The mesh on this table is small enough to hold millet and screws in, we have had zero problems with it. The one in our picture is slightly different, however we actually own both and the green version is outstanding. Can you say hardcore bird watchers? This method of diversion feeding helps keep squirrels away from bird feeding stations, attracts ground feeding birds and is relatively easy to maintain. It works for us!
Tips on the feed: Food should not be placed directly on the ground as it gets moldy and goes bad very rapidly, but instead placed on a table or elevated platform. Don’t put out too much at one time. Corn molds quickly! Do not feed any animal or critter moldy food!! Only put out what they can consume on a few days and if it gets moldy, throw it away. This is why there is not much food on our feeder. It stays clean and we just drop a scoop of fresh food on it when needed. You do not have to use the same foods we do of course. There are plenty of specialty squirrel and chipmunk feeds available, corn foods and wildlife blends and mixes. Table scraps are also good for squirrels and chipmunks. The squirrel above is munching on a cut up piece of honeydew melon ring. Again, only put out small amounts so that is does not go bad and make backyard wildlife sick.
If deer are eating from a ground feeder, please be aware that straight corn is not good for deer!! Please do a little research on this prior to feeding deer at all. Deer feeding is an entirely different topic than diversion feeding.
The block on the feeder in the top picture is a small deer lick, a 4lb apple flavored mineral block. Squirrels and birds alike enjoy this so we use it for the heck of it. Finches in particular just love it and visit the mineral block daily. Finches will dig through fire pits to get minerals out of. Normally we use a 50lb mineral block - it’ll last for years, and deer of course visit it, but we need to replace ours at this time and were having a difficult time finding the larger, apple flavored deer block specifically. We found the smaller mineral block so just grabbed it in order to have one available to our yard wildlife. These are available in the hunting sections of stores. (Yuck). The mineral blocks made for livestock, cattle and sheep are not the same as deer block. However, mineral blocks made from goats, which come in a berry flavor, are a close match and are good for birds and squirrels. It all gets so complex, doesn’t it? A note on these blocks is they are primarily salt so you would not want to leave it on the metal mesh of your table feeder for long periods of time as eventually the salt will corrode the metal. Also, being salt, keep it away from plants of any sort. Salt will kill plants.