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Getting rid of a red squirrel

D

Dave H (MI)

Well-known Member
I have made the decision to remove a certain squirrel from the farmhouse property. His fights with the larger squirrels amuse me along with his breakneck travels thru the trees around the house. So much so that I put up with his bad manners scolding me all day long and leaving his walnut shells on the deck for me to step on not to mention his poo on the railings. But now he is in the basement. I am finding walnuts everywhere and droppings. I cannot figure out how he is getting in there but I do know he needs to go. So can't exclude him because I cannot find the entrance. He won't go in the live trap I set. Thinking a rat trap is a little too small for him. He takes my poison bait and buries it somewhere or it had no effect on him. How does one safely catch/kill one of these things?
 
The rat trap might not kill him,but I'll bet it would raise hob on his love life and tick him off. LOL
 
You need a good dog. Mine has killed all the squirrels around the house. I liked watching/feeding them.
 
I like them too, but if he is in the house he is chewing holes in things and it needs to be dealt with. Sure wish I could find how he is getting in. We had fresh snow and I walked the perimeter...no sign of where he goes in and out. Has to be somewhere I cannot see.
 
In a basement with irregular field stone walls? The multi vector ricochet factor would be interesting to try to calculate.

You'll shoot your eye out kid!
 
Here is how I like to trap them. Safe from pets plus you don't have to sit out and wait for him so you can get a good shot.

Bonus, you don't have to dig through the meat to remove shotgun pellets so you can fry up the meat and make squirrel gravy.
Poke here
 
I had a chipmunk that was being a pest getting into the chicken feed one time and I thought I would set the rat trap and maybe discourage him a little. He ran right by me and into the trap. Very amusing to see the reaction...but then he died. I actually missed the little bugger. Not like he hurt anything. Now if the rat trap killed this little s**t I would not complain. Thing is, it would likely just make him harder to catch next time. Not stupid these critters!
 
Until the last year or two we didn't have squirrels, but this summer I took out 7 of them with the 12ga. A friend had one do over $200 damage to the wiring on his truck.
 
You might upset the whole ecosystem if you take him out. His bad attitude might be keeping the rest of them out. You might get ten of them filling the void,breaking in to the house and fighting for dominance. lol
 
'Squirrels' are for feeding at the city park. You're dealing with tree rats. They cause damage and must be dealt with harshly. Lock and load.
 
Years back i did BATTLE with a red Squirrel -s'. I dubbed them ROBO SQUIRREL and they too got into the house as i have and old home built on Ballon construction and they ran betwwen the first and second floor in the ceilings , in the walls and filled one whole wall with walnuts Had on go down the chimney and get into the furnace and die there , yea that was great ,Fixed that problem and like you HOW THE Hello did they get into the house??. They chewed two holes up under the eves . When i did the remodel i found that i was about one light switch flick away of a real remodel as the chewed thru all the ceiling light wires Got looking more and they were working on all the new phone lines and cable lines i installed when we first moved in here . NOW the war was on big time . A high powered pellet rife a perch with two pole barn spikes and ear corn twentyfive yards away and scope dialed in dead on . I can now safely say that there are no more Red Squirrels anywhere around here . It took awhile but they are gone .
 
Lots of trees around the old farm house and the red squirrels would show up ever couple three years or so. An afternoon in a chair out in the yard with a 20 gauge would put an end to the dog food getting into my underwear drawer. for a while anyway.
 
I am not out there enough this time of year and, when I am, he is keeping his head down pretty good. If I can't get him close up with the Marlin 60 I can get him a ways off with the Browning SA. But he is happy in my crawlspace and not showing his face anytime soon.
 
Suddenly the whole "rat king" sequence from The Nutcracker comes to mind. Armies of little red squirrels marching in formation. I tell you, if those things could organize it would only be a short march across the NW field from the woodlot to the house. Fortunately, they ARE squirrels and easily distracted. Still enough crop residue between me and them to keep them busy.
 
I've found that eliminating a few animals is only a temporary solution, another batch of animals will move in before long. It's more effective to close off the entrances and if possible get rid of some of the attractions or add some repellents. If you can't find the entrances, hire an exterminator. Walk along with the exterminator, you will be amazed at some of the ways they can get in: chimneys; dryer vents; bathroom vents; air intakes; door ways; chewed holes through siding. They will follow a heated air leak to make a warm home dry for themselves. Plan to install a lot of wire mesh guards.
 
We have a lot of trees. Big walnuts and silver maples and a very large horse chestnut to name a few. I'm good with the trees and the squirrels. Just need to get the access cut off.
 
Very sensible reply and this is the direction I want to go. Just need to get rid of this ONE until I can find out how he is getting in. You would think I could find it in the fresh snow but this is a really well hidden access point wherever it is.
 
(quoted from post at 11:44:49 02/05/17) 'Squirrels' are for feeding at the city park. You're dealing with tree rats.
Click to expand...
Huh... all these years I thought that "squirrels" were the urban dwelling PETA types who feed pigeons, sparrows and tree rats. Squirrel (the meat) is cooked tree rat, sorta like "pig" becomes "pork".

I agree "They cause damage and must be dealt with harshly. Lock and load."
 
That trap might work if I can get one small enough. I like those for raccoons and such. Saves ammo.

I'm not eating a squirrel. That's just a rat.
 
Sounds like my house. This trap works, I chain them to a brick and put them along walls and such where the varmints like to travel. I had a chipmunk tunnel coming up in the middle of the yard, I caught 29 right there in one summer, if you put it in the right spot it doesn't even need to be baited.

And it is made in the USA!

http://www.kness.com/big-snap-e-rat-trap
 
True story, we had red squirrels on home farm when I was growing up, then black squirrels moved in and red squirrels moved out havnt seen a red squirrel in years just black ones
 
I had red squirrels for years, then one gray showed up and terrorized the reds and me too. The reds all left and were replaced by about a half dozen grays. There all over the place, hate them, the red ones stayed on the far edge of the yard and didn't bother anything.
 
Keep after 'em, Dave! I am always battling them around here, just a few miles southwest of you..And, they're destructive, check the Tractor Vet, I agree with him 110%!
 
Go to your local hardware store and get some sticky strips , put some peanuts in an area of the basement and place sticky pads all around the bait, they step onto the pad,try to escape and get more and more entrapped,clean up is easy, just toss the pads in the garbage..may even get a few meeses...
 
Had a squirrel getting in to one of my rentals. He would go rite up the brick siding, push up on a piece of aluminum soffit that he got loose and rite in. Took me a while to figure out how he was getting in.
 
I have a bad feeling it is something like that. Thing is, he is only in the basement and comes from the crawl space on one end where the addition was put on. I have seen or heard him in the rest of the place. I don't live there so maybe he gets quiet when I show up.
 
I was thinking that was a good solution. I could put it in front of the hole he uses to access the basement from the crawlspace. Once I am sure he is NOT in the crawl space I could go in there and see if I can find a hole or something.
 
Yeah...nothing does damage like a squirrel...although this one has been pretty good. He was getting into the main house because there was a hole in the basement door where a cat used to go thru. Cat's gone. So now is the hole too. Haven't caught a sign of him in the house since.
 
Maybe if there was a block wall at the end of it! This little guy would probably think that thing was fun.
 
Are you sure you only have one? Last year my wife as complaini that something was etting the seeds in the bird feeder. I saw a red squirrel but did not pay much attention to it. This went on for a while and I started seeing more so I opened season on them. I shot over 0 in a 2 week time period.
We had something get in the attic of our house and I still don't know how but I set a trap for them using a plastic trash can they chewed a hole in. I put sunflower seeds on a piece of paper taped to the lid pf the can by the hole and they would go in the paper would drop and they were trapped. This turned out to flying squirrels. I got 9 of them over the winter. I took them on a snowmobile ride a 1/2 mile back in our woods and turned them loose.
 
You could try one of those plug in sonic things, dunno if they really work or not, but they are pretty cheap to just try a couple.
 
Dave H.,
What if your wife went in the basement at night and shined a flash light around the entire foundation while you were outside looking for the light beam to peak through a gap somewhere... maybe then you could see the area where the squirrel is getting in.

In our house - we used to get a lot of mice in the fall. Then we hired a guy to do spray-on insulation on our foundation. When he did it - a big glob of insulation came through to the inside of the basement on an area on the west side. It was a large diameter hole where we couldn't see it - almost like there used to be a pipe there at one time. But on that side of the house there is a sun porch - so that had blocked us from seeing that hole. Once that hole was sealed we have literally NEVER had another mouse in the house (and it's been many years now).
 
Hello Dave H (MI),

Peanut butter and peanuts. They will go into a live trap. Bet you have more then one though. No matter just keep baiting!

Guido.
 
Don't waste your time with a rat trap. Couple of times they get out and leave behind a big wad of their fur. Take a look on U- tube and see what some of those guys in England are using. Very big and large bore air rifles. POOP !!!! head shot instant stop. Guy has a "Scope" cam.
 
Lets just say atleast it was easier replacing the wires while i had the plaster all tore out this time , but really the dining room ceiling light wire the only thing between the three copper wires was just the paper on the ground the hot and neutral were bare . . I made up a wooden platform where up to three squirrels couls seat and eat ear corn whit the ear stuck down over two pole barn spikes and if i saw them one was going to get a bad case of heartburn , then just wait a little while and here they would come again and one more would go down , If only Pellet rifles cam in semi auto i could havenailed two because the one would just set there looking as the other one hit the ground before it would skoot off . Using a reg 22 or the 12 ga. was out of the question when ya live in town with noise neighbors , some times i could get away with one shot from the 22 But the second one would have three cop cars riding around .
 
Rat trap souped up. Take a rat trap,put a 1/2 piece of wood under the spring end,take two or three drywall screws from under the bail end to form spikes when the bail snaps.Build a 4"x4" box long enough to put the trap in. One end bore a 2" entrance hole.One end has to be removable to reset the trap . When the squirrel sticks his head in the bail drives the screws home. Cat and pet proof. Eliminated 13 last year. No noise to attract nosy neighbor that feeds the blame pests.
 
I'll have her come on here and YOU can explain to her the idea of her crawling thru a 18x24 hole into a cold crawl space with a psychotic squirrel hiding somewhere in there. ROFL!

I'm not even going to suggest it. She's having a bad night. The oldest went up to school for the second week of living away. She burnt lunch and then later a tray of cookies (I've been eating them, I like them brown). If I do suggest it, I think I will have to man up and do the crawl space myself...but I am killing the psycho squirrel first!
 
Ha-ha-ha.

Sorry, I guess I was imagining a basement like ours... where one can walk upright like a Homo sapien.

Ya, if I was her... NO WAY I'd go into a crawl space AND especially NOT with a crazed squirrel in there. (Sorry, Mrs. Dave!)

Hope you get that critter. Those little red ones are crazy-fast. There are some that come around one of the offices where I work.
 
I've got three Goldens that wouldn't stop until they had him treed. Find a friend's nasty vicious little dog to stick in that crawl space. The squirrel will run right up the nearest tree. They make quite a plop when they hit the ground. 20 gauge full choke.
 
Hello Dave H (MI),

First time ever, got two this morning with a live trap, at the same time. Peanuts did it. They will be going on a long ride!

Guido.
 
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