Every boomer with a bird feeder hates squirrels. I don't understand.
They're destructive and difficult to deter. If squirrel hate is more common among Boomers, it's probably because they've lived long enough to find this out firsthand.
Well said. Not a boomer, but I've come to hate the destructive little fuckers and periodically go on an extermination binge. Chewing wires off, making holes in the siding and soffits to store their stuff, they have earned my undying hatred.
Besides, red squirrels are the largest predator of baby rabbits.
Gen-Xer here, and I used to hate those furry-tailed rats. In one of my old apartments, one lived in the eaves of my building near my window and used to wake me up chewing on shit all the time. I've worked 2nd and 3rd shift jobs most of my adult life, and have found it hard enough to get other humans to respect my sleep time, let alone some rabid rodents that everyone else thinks are cute. I'm pretty much indifferent to them now, not being a property owner, but I can definitely understand why people hate them.
There used to be a clip on Fu Kung (remember that?) where a dude set up a trap on his back porch with a basket and some bungie cords, and when the squirrel took the bait, the guy cut the tether and flings the unsuspecting little bugger like 30 or 40 yards.
They destroy whatever they can. They chew cables, rip siding and nest in insulation. Make wherever they can smell of piss. If you try to grew anything edible they eat the sprouting fruit, nuts, and leaves then start eating the bark and kill the tree.
Squirrels eat the bird food meant for the birds and are extremely hard to stop
Why are the squirrels second class citizens to the birds? Is there a bird food shortage?
No, it's just a bird feeder not a squirrel feeder. At least until the squirrels manage to change the signage, which they probably could if they tried hard enough.
Squirrels are an invasive species, they chew wires and mess with stuff.
Birds are pretty, sound nice, and eat bugs. They also poop on everyone's stuff, but somehow it's good luck if you get shit on.
Humans are an invasive species, especially if you are a descendant of an English settler and not a native american indian
Truthfully they were also invasive. We're only native to Africa
But when they arrived in the lands of North America, those lands were not inhabited by other human tribes
We've not talking about colonizing though, we're discussing invasive species.
Given humanity (Homo Sapiens) is currently thought to have evolved in Africa, that is the natural human habitat. All other habitats we've created we can be thought of as an invasive species.
Please don't virtue signal when it's off topic like this, it's really annoying.
They make a bird feeder called ‘Squirrel Buster’ which is fairly squirrel proof. I still put out food for them though, squirrels gotta eat too.
This. I found the squirrels to leave the bird feeders and the garden alone if you leave them a danegeld of raw peanuts and maybe strap an ear of corn to the tree.
I buy in shell peanuts for wildlife and the squirrels love them. They bury them all round the property which is fun to watch. On Nextdoor I occasionally find posts from people trying to figure out where all these peanut shells are coming from in my neighborhood.
My neighbor does this and I hate them. I have peanut shells all over my property. I can’t walk barefoot because there’s so fucking many shells.
They’re in my drains. They’re in my flower and veggie beds. Birds pick them up and take them to my roof and try to crack them at 6am and wake us up.
I HATE HATE HATE my peanut throwing neighbors.
Hi neighbor
Hey there
Now kith
And then you go put more peanuts out, I assume
I buy peanuts 50 pounds at a time, same with black oil sunflower weeds. Nature loves them both. Our backyard is full of natural weeds, bunnies, squirrels, chipmunks and many varieties of birds
🎵 Oh strap an ear of corn, to the old oak tree... 🎵
I just watched "o brother where art thou". Soggy bottom boys got a new hit
🎵 I-he-yahi am an ear, of corn and sorrow. I've seen squirrels, all my days...🎶
I do this, but I've got a wood chip yard except for where plants are.
Guess where the little bastards bury their peanuts?
In your corn-hole?
Skill issue
Every since one of them tore out half the insulation from my car hood and stuffed it in every corner of the engine compartment, I've had it out for them. Furry little obsessive compulsive weirdos.
Have you considered the car may be better this way?
My bird feeder is for cat entertainment purposes anyway. Cats seem equally happy with birds or squirrels. Not a boomer but I guess I'd understand if I wanted to see birds.
It doesn't matter your age, put up a bird feeder and you'll soon hate squirrels. You spend $40 on a bag of seed and they'll scoop out all the stuff that they don't want to get to the stuff they do want. Seed on the ground attracts animals you don't want like rodents or Canadian geese that shit all over. I found it easier to pay the squirrels off like the mafia. Buy a bag of corn or cheap peanuts and sprinkle some around to appease the bastards. It sucks but it's worth it in the long run.
They eat hella fruit off my fruits trees. And when I say eat, I mean take 3 bites and drop it on the ground to grab a new one and take 3 bites.
They waste 50 apricots to eat 3 apricots.
Until I started taking all the ground fruit and boiling it in a pot to make fruit juice for brandy distilling, it was a complete waste. Now it's still wasteful, because I'd rather eat the fruit, but at least I recover something from it.
Fuck squirrels.
37y/o here. Fuck Squirrels, grey and red, as well as chipmunks. They're all just different textured rats. Destroy shit to make nests, destroy shit to get at food or store food, disease spreading, fuckem all.
Anyone needs advice for bird feeders: 4x4 post in ground, thin walled metal rust resistant metal tubing covered in environment friendly lube. I've gone extreme with lard - looked like shit after a week, now I just buy vegetable oil spray and coat it. As long as there are no trees close enough for Squirrels to jump to the feeder you shouldn't have an issue. Every post I put in gets a 4 way cross on top to hang 4 individual feeders from. I do this for any feeder that isn't humming bird/oriole cuz they don't seem to get fucked with.
That fourth sentence is people 110%
We are the skaven. Respect our furrier tree brethren.
You'd fit in nicely in the subreddit that is something like I'm 14 and this is deep.
Not a boomer but the little bastards chewed through the propane line on my grill so now I throw rocks at em when I see them. They're formally vermin in my eyes.
Not a boomer, don't care for squirrels. They're attic-hiding, wire-eating bastards. What the fuzzy-tailed rats don't eat out if the bird feeder, they knock on the ground. I planted 12 cannabis seeds. Each time one sprouted it would disappear the next day with a tiny asshole paw-shaped scoop left in the dirt.
Maybe because 'bird feeder' implies they are trying to feed birds?
I really hated the possums in my old neighborhood because they would always crawl into the soffit and have babies, destroy things I could not afford to fix, and poop stinky poop in my attic. But in my new slightly bougier neighborhood the possums are so cute and just run around eating bugs. Rats I can't bring myself to hate, and squirrels just seem like cute fluffy rats. So I can't hate them but goddam it I have never harvested even one fully ripe tomato because they destroy them. I do hate that.
The squirells empty the bird feeders much faster than the birds would so the boomer then has to refill it sooner. Rinse and repeat until they constantly talk about the squirrels.
My parents bought my grandfather a slingshot for his squirrel problem/hatred and the dude took off part of his own thumbnail and had to go to an urgent care.
My grandpa took issue with the seagulls harassing everything else in his backyard, so he bought a slingshot and shot them with grapes "They don't get hurt by a squishy grape, they get scared and the pigeons are happy about the grapes"
I don't hate them, but since grey ground squirrels are a primary vector for Bubonic plague in the southwest US, I prefer to keep them distanced.
Also don't have a bird feeder, planted natives to provide food and habitat.
My dog hates squirrels, so I do too.
Since people already answered the question, here's some unrequested tip:
If you want mammals to avoid bird feed, mix some of the hottest chili powder and/or pepper seeds that you find into the feed. The birds won't care, they don't get pepper burned, but squirrels (and you) do.
It's native in my chunk of South America. I almost never see those but I hear them often. I know them as sanhaço, but there are a bunch of local names.
The pepper plant is likely a wild malagueta. Almost as hot as habanero, but birds love it.
So cool, thank you for the added detail. I was wondering if it was a random picture illustrating your point, or a local bird. It's both! Unfortunately for me, sanhaço are never up here in Northern Canada 🙂
Not a boomer, but as a Brit - the grey squirrel is an invasive species which has pretty much driven out the native red squirrel from most of the country. They also cause damage to trees through bark stripping.
I've known this for a while, however I do not wish harm to grey squirrels. This is their war, I don't even know the first thing about squirrel warfare, although I do hope the red squirrels find an alliance to support their freedoms.
It works great, now I'm happy to watch the squirrels run around not eating my birds' seed.
Only downside so far is some wasps built a nest inside and stung me. But they're dead now.
I'm imagining that last line said with a thousand yard stare.
Not a boomer, but squirrels are pretty much just tree rats that make loud noises, could be the cause.
Their mating call in the fall when they lookin for that squssy is a WILD sound
They are of the order rodentia, but so are capybara and everyone loves those. So I think you're incorrect.
I disagree with the premise. Not every boomer hates squirrels. Not even every boomer with a bird feeder.
I normally don't care for broad strokes like this either, but his statement was that every boomer with a bird feeder hated them, so it wasn't all boomers. (So I'd say still broad, but a bit better than what you responded as them saying)
That said, squirrels where I was from are much more scarce than they once were. The acorns are still around, but the animals... Slowly disappearing.
The title talks about boomers in general. Only in the subtext is it specified to mean the ones with birdfeeders.
I feel like you don't understand the relationship between a title and the body text.
And I think you don't like admiting it's bit of an clickbait title.
My comment was very clear; I disagree with both, the assumption made in the title and I equally disagree with it after reading the subtext. Implying all boomers with birdfeeders hate squirrels is over-generalization.
It's a quick title that leads into more detail in the body, as titles often do. I think you're just regarded AF.
A lot of US defaultism going on in this thread. Americans (and perhaps British) talking about the North American grey squirrel as the incarnation of all squirrels, when people elsewhere in the world would have very different experiences with their local native squirrels, who act quite differently to those.
For example?
Feel free to share your experiences.
How DARE people answer a vague question with their own experiences!! Who'd guess that a question asked in English gets answers from people in predominantly English-speaking areas?! Fuck all these people for not discussing the habits of the Layards's Palm Squirrel and why Sri Lankan boomers love/hate it!
They're destructive and difficult to deter. If squirrel hate is more common among Boomers, it's probably because they've lived long enough to find this out firsthand.
Well said. Not a boomer, but I've come to hate the destructive little fuckers and periodically go on an extermination binge. Chewing wires off, making holes in the siding and soffits to store their stuff, they have earned my undying hatred.
Besides, red squirrels are the largest predator of baby rabbits.
Gen-Xer here, and I used to hate those furry-tailed rats. In one of my old apartments, one lived in the eaves of my building near my window and used to wake me up chewing on shit all the time. I've worked 2nd and 3rd shift jobs most of my adult life, and have found it hard enough to get other humans to respect my sleep time, let alone some rabid rodents that everyone else thinks are cute. I'm pretty much indifferent to them now, not being a property owner, but I can definitely understand why people hate them.
There used to be a clip on Fu Kung (remember that?) where a dude set up a trap on his back porch with a basket and some bungie cords, and when the squirrel took the bait, the guy cut the tether and flings the unsuspecting little bugger like 30 or 40 yards.
They destroy whatever they can. They chew cables, rip siding and nest in insulation. Make wherever they can smell of piss. If you try to grew anything edible they eat the sprouting fruit, nuts, and leaves then start eating the bark and kill the tree.
Squirrels eat the bird food meant for the birds and are extremely hard to stop
Why are the squirrels second class citizens to the birds? Is there a bird food shortage?
No, it's just a bird feeder not a squirrel feeder. At least until the squirrels manage to change the signage, which they probably could if they tried hard enough.
Squirrels are an invasive species, they chew wires and mess with stuff.
Birds are pretty, sound nice, and eat bugs. They also poop on everyone's stuff, but somehow it's good luck if you get shit on.
Humans are an invasive species, especially if you are a descendant of an English settler and not a native american indian
Truthfully they were also invasive. We're only native to Africa
But when they arrived in the lands of North America, those lands were not inhabited by other human tribes
We've not talking about colonizing though, we're discussing invasive species.
Given humanity (Homo Sapiens) is currently thought to have evolved in Africa, that is the natural human habitat. All other habitats we've created we can be thought of as an invasive species.
Please don't virtue signal when it's off topic like this, it's really annoying.
They make a bird feeder called ‘Squirrel Buster’ which is fairly squirrel proof. I still put out food for them though, squirrels gotta eat too.
This. I found the squirrels to leave the bird feeders and the garden alone if you leave them a danegeld of raw peanuts and maybe strap an ear of corn to the tree.
I buy in shell peanuts for wildlife and the squirrels love them. They bury them all round the property which is fun to watch. On Nextdoor I occasionally find posts from people trying to figure out where all these peanut shells are coming from in my neighborhood.
My neighbor does this and I hate them. I have peanut shells all over my property. I can’t walk barefoot because there’s so fucking many shells.
They’re in my drains. They’re in my flower and veggie beds. Birds pick them up and take them to my roof and try to crack them at 6am and wake us up.
I HATE HATE HATE my peanut throwing neighbors.
Hi neighbor
Hey there
Now kith
And then you go put more peanuts out, I assume
I buy peanuts 50 pounds at a time, same with black oil sunflower weeds. Nature loves them both. Our backyard is full of natural weeds, bunnies, squirrels, chipmunks and many varieties of birds
🎵 Oh strap an ear of corn, to the old oak tree... 🎵
I just watched "o brother where art thou". Soggy bottom boys got a new hit
🎵 I-he-yahi am an ear, of corn and sorrow. I've seen squirrels, all my days...🎶
I do this, but I've got a wood chip yard except for where plants are.
Guess where the little bastards bury their peanuts?
In your corn-hole?
Skill issue
Every since one of them tore out half the insulation from my car hood and stuffed it in every corner of the engine compartment, I've had it out for them. Furry little obsessive compulsive weirdos.
Have you considered the car may be better this way?
My bird feeder is for cat entertainment purposes anyway. Cats seem equally happy with birds or squirrels. Not a boomer but I guess I'd understand if I wanted to see birds.
It doesn't matter your age, put up a bird feeder and you'll soon hate squirrels. You spend $40 on a bag of seed and they'll scoop out all the stuff that they don't want to get to the stuff they do want. Seed on the ground attracts animals you don't want like rodents or Canadian geese that shit all over. I found it easier to pay the squirrels off like the mafia. Buy a bag of corn or cheap peanuts and sprinkle some around to appease the bastards. It sucks but it's worth it in the long run.
They eat hella fruit off my fruits trees. And when I say eat, I mean take 3 bites and drop it on the ground to grab a new one and take 3 bites.
They waste 50 apricots to eat 3 apricots.
Until I started taking all the ground fruit and boiling it in a pot to make fruit juice for brandy distilling, it was a complete waste. Now it's still wasteful, because I'd rather eat the fruit, but at least I recover something from it.
Fuck squirrels.
37y/o here. Fuck Squirrels, grey and red, as well as chipmunks. They're all just different textured rats. Destroy shit to make nests, destroy shit to get at food or store food, disease spreading, fuckem all.
Anyone needs advice for bird feeders: 4x4 post in ground, thin walled metal rust resistant metal tubing covered in environment friendly lube. I've gone extreme with lard - looked like shit after a week, now I just buy vegetable oil spray and coat it. As long as there are no trees close enough for Squirrels to jump to the feeder you shouldn't have an issue. Every post I put in gets a 4 way cross on top to hang 4 individual feeders from. I do this for any feeder that isn't humming bird/oriole cuz they don't seem to get fucked with.
That fourth sentence is people 110%
We are the skaven. Respect our furrier tree brethren.
You'd fit in nicely in the subreddit that is something like I'm 14 and this is deep.
Not a boomer but the little bastards chewed through the propane line on my grill so now I throw rocks at em when I see them. They're formally vermin in my eyes.
Not a boomer, don't care for squirrels. They're attic-hiding, wire-eating bastards. What the fuzzy-tailed rats don't eat out if the bird feeder, they knock on the ground. I planted 12 cannabis seeds. Each time one sprouted it would disappear the next day with a tiny asshole paw-shaped scoop left in the dirt.
Maybe because 'bird feeder' implies they are trying to feed birds?
I really hated the possums in my old neighborhood because they would always crawl into the soffit and have babies, destroy things I could not afford to fix, and poop stinky poop in my attic. But in my new slightly bougier neighborhood the possums are so cute and just run around eating bugs. Rats I can't bring myself to hate, and squirrels just seem like cute fluffy rats. So I can't hate them but goddam it I have never harvested even one fully ripe tomato because they destroy them. I do hate that.
The squirells empty the bird feeders much faster than the birds would so the boomer then has to refill it sooner. Rinse and repeat until they constantly talk about the squirrels.
My parents bought my grandfather a slingshot for his squirrel problem/hatred and the dude took off part of his own thumbnail and had to go to an urgent care.
My grandpa took issue with the seagulls harassing everything else in his backyard, so he bought a slingshot and shot them with grapes "They don't get hurt by a squishy grape, they get scared and the pigeons are happy about the grapes"
I don't hate them, but since grey ground squirrels are a primary vector for Bubonic plague in the southwest US, I prefer to keep them distanced.
Also don't have a bird feeder, planted natives to provide food and habitat.
My dog hates squirrels, so I do too.
Since people already answered the question, here's some unrequested tip:
If you want mammals to avoid bird feed, mix some of the hottest chili powder and/or pepper seeds that you find into the feed. The birds won't care, they don't get pepper burned, but squirrels (and you) do.
Picture related:
Sayaca Tanager
It's native in my chunk of South America. I almost never see those but I hear them often. I know them as sanhaço, but there are a bunch of local names.
The pepper plant is likely a wild malagueta. Almost as hot as habanero, but birds love it.
So cool, thank you for the added detail. I was wondering if it was a random picture illustrating your point, or a local bird. It's both! Unfortunately for me, sanhaço are never up here in Northern Canada 🙂
Not a boomer, but as a Brit - the grey squirrel is an invasive species which has pretty much driven out the native red squirrel from most of the country. They also cause damage to trees through bark stripping.
I've known this for a while, however I do not wish harm to grey squirrels. This is their war, I don't even know the first thing about squirrel warfare, although I do hope the red squirrels find an alliance to support their freedoms.
I bought a squirrel proof bird feeder pole thing
https://jcswildlife.com/products/squirrel-stopper-deluxe-squirrel-proof-bird-feeder-pole-system-with-baffle
It works great, now I'm happy to watch the squirrels run around not eating my birds' seed.
Only downside so far is some wasps built a nest inside and stung me. But they're dead now.
I'm imagining that last line said with a thousand yard stare.
Not a boomer, but squirrels are pretty much just tree rats that make loud noises, could be the cause.
Their mating call in the fall when they lookin for that squssy is a WILD sound
They are of the order rodentia, but so are capybara and everyone loves those. So I think you're incorrect.
I disagree with the premise. Not every boomer hates squirrels. Not even every boomer with a bird feeder.
I normally don't care for broad strokes like this either, but his statement was that every boomer with a bird feeder hated them, so it wasn't all boomers. (So I'd say still broad, but a bit better than what you responded as them saying)
That said, squirrels where I was from are much more scarce than they once were. The acorns are still around, but the animals... Slowly disappearing.
The title talks about boomers in general. Only in the subtext is it specified to mean the ones with birdfeeders.
I feel like you don't understand the relationship between a title and the body text.
And I think you don't like admiting it's bit of an clickbait title.
My comment was very clear; I disagree with both, the assumption made in the title and I equally disagree with it after reading the subtext. Implying all boomers with birdfeeders hate squirrels is over-generalization.
It's a quick title that leads into more detail in the body, as titles often do. I think you're just regarded AF.
A lot of US defaultism going on in this thread. Americans (and perhaps British) talking about the North American grey squirrel as the incarnation of all squirrels, when people elsewhere in the world would have very different experiences with their local native squirrels, who act quite differently to those.
For example?
Feel free to share your experiences.
How DARE people answer a vague question with their own experiences!! Who'd guess that a question asked in English gets answers from people in predominantly English-speaking areas?! Fuck all these people for not discussing the habits of the Layards's Palm Squirrel and why Sri Lankan boomers love/hate it!