Get ready for some fat squirrels

http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/squirrels-are-getting-tubby-warm-winter-weather

"The season of overindulgence has come and passed. But if you're feeling riddled with guilt, building up the courage to renew your long-forgotten gym membership, these squirrels might make you feel a little better – you're not alone.The exceptionally mild winter in many areas of the world has led to squirrels across Europe and North America piling on the pounds. The freakishly warm weather has meant trees still have an abundant banquet of nuts and seeds, which the squirrels have been taking full advantage of."
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My neighborhood produces a bumper crop of acorns annually. The squirrel population stays relatively stable. It seems the hawks, and the bluejays do a job on them without the pellet guns. My neighbors wife has been feeding all the animals for years, she had one squirrel that lived under the crawl space on a small deck extension. He was so fat he could not jump from the ground to a picnic bench seat some 18 inches hi. A daily routine she would bake 2 peanut butter cookies, spread peanut butter on them, then push some kind of nuts in the peanut butter. The squirrel would climb steps and boxes that led to the kitchen window he got so fat her husband built a series of ramps, he insulated the crawl space and put a quartz heater in there for the winter. For laughs you could take a cookie put it 5 foot hi in the fork of a pear tree, the fat slob would not even attempt to climb it. He was dead one morning and we joked about him dying of diabetes. He looked like a cantelope with legs.
 
Where I live there's a lot of farms and corn so the squirrels are well fed. sometimes we shoot how many squirrels we want clean and let the rest go. There's one guy that we call squirrel lover because we seen 13 squirrels from the road and we asked to hunt them and he said he likes to watch them and his cats chase them. As many as we seen for. How big the area is that place needed at least a few out of there but the farm next to it has trees and we can shoot them up there but now they know where they're safe cause we go by the road and we see a bunch of them sitting in the trees.
 
"guod123"My neighborhood produces a bumper crop of acorns annually. The squirrel population stays relatively stable. It seems the hawks, and the bluejays do a job on them without the pellet guns. My neighbors wife has been feeding all the animals for years, she had one squirrel that lived under the crawl space on a small deck extension. He was so fat he could not jump from the ground to a picnic bench seat some 18 inches hi. A daily routine she would bake 2 peanut butter cookies, spread peanut butter on them, then push some kind of nuts in the peanut butter. The squirrel would climb steps and boxes that led to the kitchen window he got so fat her husband built a series of ramps, he insulated the crawl space and put a quartz heater in there for the winter. For laughs you could take a cookie put it 5 foot hi in the fork of a pear tree, the fat slob would not even attempt to climb it. He was dead one morning and we joked about him dying of diabetes. He looked like a cantelope with legs.
Oh man, this story has me cracking up!!! a Cantelope with legs! haha! A squirrel with diabetes?! hahaha
 
I don't think they could hit those sizes without the free food from humans. My neighbors wife claims she only spends 25-30.00 per week on wildlife food. There are feeders, she puts out cat food, spreads cut up bread. It's funny the cats exist with the birds, squirrels, chipmunks. It's like a neutral zone. She feeds the birds and the squirrel comes by during the day. The cat food she puts out at night. The fat squirrel lived on the property constantly for more than 2 years and was a daily visitor for better than a year before that. The biggest problem is the raccoons, they are very destructive. it's basically a summer home community, and every house has them in, or under sheds, and decks. They also take up residence in stored boats, and campers. My .25 Sumatra with a Yukon is a nice solution.