# Of Squirrels In My Yard, Experiment

You will be amazed at how many you will see even after you start shooting them.

Good luck and keep us posted!

Putting a time limit of a month. I bet an even dozen in a month.

ETA- NICE! You posted #2 while I was typing my short response. Good shooting.

In a warm climate like the southeastern US where I live, gray squirrels will have two litters per year. Therefore they quickly become abundant and will wreck gardens and fruit and nut crops.

This is what it looked like under the pear tree in my back yard. They will pull a pear, take a couple of bites, and drop it to the ground to spoil and be eaten by insects.


In this climate they don't tend to invade attics as much as they do where it's colder. However if and when they do, deal with it quickly because they are responsible for many house fires each year from chewing on mains wiring.

I have a pair I have been watching. I have let them slide so far as they are in the acorn tree currently, which is close to my pecan trees. There are also not many pecans on the trees this year. I may just let them slide being only one pair so far, but probably not in the end. I took out 15 year before last in the pecan trees to thin them out. That really helped a bunch for many reasons. I hate that they take one bite and then toss the pecan to the ground for another. Seeing this gets me motivated to stop this wastefulness. I look forward to having my own pecans all year long then this begins happening...Grrr.

theyre usually not a problem till theres 8 or more and im sorry, i dont buy that an animal native to north america is invasive anywhere on the continent .. a pest problem, only you know that .. they chase my hens out of the coop when they set up a clan of a few and claim an area so they are a problem when the numbers increase, they tend to start being destructive at that point .. so alittle culling action is required lol .. same with any other animal, like chickens, i waste extra roosters because they eat all the food and do nothing but make noise .. but we are the stewards of this earth and should respect life, way i see it .. 

When we lived in the Midwest and had a giant walnut tree in the yard I didn't shoot them because they cleaned up the walnuts for me. After a tornado downed the tree the squirrels started raiding the vegetable garden and digging up the flower bulbs. Once while having breakfast on the deck, I went inside for more coffee. Returning i found a squirrel eating granola from my bowl! That's when I took action.

I would cull them down to 4 and let them be until they replenished. The most I counted in the backyard at once was 14. Luckily IL has a long season. August 1st to February 15th.

Nice job on the squirrel with the springer @survivo45.

Well, I know there is squirrel pesting and squirrel hunting, I hope to do both soon, and definitely see where they can be pests and destructive to one’s property if they get out of control.

However, I almost had squirrels taken off the hit list because of my mom. The last couple of years of my mom’s life she would feed the squirrels large bags of peanuts, one every couple of weeks. She loved watching them from her house bedroom window and in the backyard as the squirrels played.

My mom said that squirrels were her spirit animal. Well, the last month or two of her life she changed her mind, and it became the morning dove.

So squirrels are back on the list and I don’t have to worry about shooting mom because we all know what happen, my mom would always be in my ear yelling, and I would never hear the end of it!

Nice shooting with the head shots. I live in town, so can't really shoot them here, just like watching them run around. But in the woods, I do enjoy the hunt. But of course the using some reason and not over hunting any particular woods.

Hopefully you are taking the time to dress them and add to the dinner pot. They are some really tasty eating. And besides, you have been feeding them to get them fattened up anyway. Just take advantage of the good lean organic grain fed meat.

Take care.

Squirrels will chew on anything. If you’ve ever known anyone personally, who had squirrels in their house, likely in their attic, ask them about it?

They will absolutely destroy the attic. And unless you hear them, and then they have babies…You’ve now got a half a dozen animals crapping And peeing all over your ceiling, and you don’t even know it. And then they get down between the walls. That’s when they chew on insulation, and the house burns down.


When I use the word attic, I am not referring to an actual attic that you have access to from your house. Up north most of the houses have a cold roof, which is just an area inside the attic that’s full of insulation wiring etc. it is not part of the living area.

Then you have to get rid of them. You can try shooting them while they’re in the attic, with a low powered Airgun. That doesn’t work all that great. So then there’s trapping…while they’re still crapping, And it’s soaking into the insulation and ceiling.

Poison works well, unless they die in your attic and you don’t find them. Or they die in your yard and your dog finds them.

This happened to a friend of mine. He’s an air gun guy. He controlled the squirrels in his yard. Plus he had a dog that wanted to get every squirrel that it ever saw, and once in a while would actually catch one. Now he has a crappy ceiling.

from my experience, in a residential neighborhood, the only real difference that shooting them makes… is that the ones that survive learn to fear your yard. 

Dogs help also.

A good Springer is the perfect suburban dispatch tool. Well done.

mike

Poison never a good idea

I don’t believe squirrels learn from the death of other squirrels. The only thing they learn is how to defeat anything, non-lethal, you do to stop them. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be able to keep shooting them off the same feeder/ bait station. If they are staying away it’s because you’ve thinned them out and the new batch hasn’t moved in yet. 
I’ve seen them sit next to a dead one and eat the seed the other one left…. many times. No… they don’t learn. 
i shot 30 + in my yard, off the same feeder, and 20+ off my girlfriends feeder. Hers is 15 feet from the kitchen door. They would leave when they saw or heard you open the door, then return in a few minutes. If I had the time to wait, I would shoot them when they popped their heads out of the bush next to the feeder. Sometimes they just hung on the feeder and dared you to shoot them. No problem!
Things started slowing down at my house after about number 30. Before that, I was taking two or three a day. Now they are few and far between, but they keep showing up…. at the same feeder. No… they don’t learn. 

Fun thread! When I first started I thought I had a few in my suburban yard. In 1.5 years I have lost count after 40, granted they have slowed way down last 6 months. 


please keep the thread updated. I should of started a thread like this to keep count!  

I am kinda in the same boat. Damm tree rats steal all my chicken food and chewed up the food bowls

Great shooting on those squirrels with your RWS 34!