Create a chickenwire cage around them? Setup some baited mousetraps (rat sized) and tether them to something nearby? There are also "humane" traps for sale at Home Depot according to someone that posted in my squirrel rant thread. I think they're $40/ea.

Squirrels are taking down my sunflowers. They climb up the stalk, chew off the head, the head falls to the ground. The smaller ones, they run off with, but the bigger ones they just drag a ways until they realize they can't climb with them. HALF my sunflowers have been decapitated! AARGH!

For those that can tolerate killing them, a suggestion was posted this spring on another Forum which we are using with great success. We were fighting a losing battle with squirrels getting into the house causing a great deal of damage. Mix 1/2 cup chunky peanut butter with 1/2 cup Plaster of Paris stirring in a few drops of vegetable oil. When throughly combined, roll this mixture into little balls and place them about out of the reach of children and pets on tree branches. We repeat this treatment once a week. Try it.

We bought one of the Hav-a-heart traps to catch a raccoon and baited it with sardines (this was recommended to us). After catching the neighbor's cat on two different nights, we finally caught that raccoon. I haven't tried it for squirrels yet, but I'm betting it would work if you put a nice juicy pile of sunflower seeds inside it to draw them in. Right now (fingers crossed) our squirrels are only eating the bird's food, which is bad enough... that stuff is not cheap. We may resort to trapping them if they start stealing tomatoes or corn!

That Plaster of Paris idea is disgusting why don't you just put rat poison with the peanut butter and kill them more quickly. UUG

Get a hawk or an owl. Our neighborhood has a couple of each. Of course that's probably because we have so many squirrels.

There's something weird going on with squirrels in our area this year. We heard a terrible commotion on our roof one morning a few weeks ago. I looked out the window and witnessed a squirrel stampede. Fifteen (I counted them) had run across our roof, across the telephone wires and into a pine tree out front. They all ran down the pine tree, across the street and behind the house across the street. I had never seen anything like this and thought perhaps the parent squirrels were chasing their offspring away from home.

I was out back gardening last week and noticed a big commotion, lots of noise and leaves and small limbs breaking off in the tops of our neighbors oak trees, and the commotion moved to our oak trees. I saw perhaps 20 or more squirrels in a high speed chase (or stampede) through and down the oak trees and into another neighbors yard several houses away before I lost sight of the chase.

Has anyone else seen squirrels behaving this way? We have lived here for twenty six years and I have never noticed it before. Maybe the squirrels around here have become possessed.

I am not fond of squirrels at all. One this year is breaking and eating the leaves from one of our Hibiscus bushes and finds the flower buds particularly tasty. Too bad the Hisbicus isn't poisonous.

Opal - That is just bizarre! If I saw that, I would have been very freaked-out! I am still battling the tree rats here. I have taken to picking my tomatoes when they are at the very end of the green stage, and putting them in a paper bag to ripen. They probably won't be as good, but at least I'll have some!
My next battle strategy was going to be getting a fake hawk to sit by the beds. We have red tails and cooper's hawks and owls in our small neighborhood.

A couple of days ago, I was excited to see the big red tail sitting on a dead branch in the backyard. Guess what? One of Satan's squirrels ran down the tree and onto the same branch! I was holding my breath, sure that I was about to see an Animal Planet Moment. Nope. The hawk just looked at the squirrel like it was crazy, then ignored it. The squirrel continued to FROLICK on the branch 4 FEET AWAY from the hawk.

Excuse me???? Easy meal just steps away! And you pass it up? Good gracious -- all the animals are going crazy. :)

I don't have a problem with squirrels anymore.
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