Reuse A Common Baking Essential To Keep Squirrels Away From Your Bird Feeder

If you welcome birds into your backyard or garden by keeping your bird feeders filled and inviting, you know all too well how pesky squirrels can throw a wrench in the works. These cunning creatures can devise a way to raid bird feeders, circumventing your best defense. Bird feeder manufacturers have attempted to invent the ultimate squirrel-proof products, marketing everything from squirrel-resistant feeders and squirrel baffles, to attachable mesh screens and metal flashing. Protective cages, weight-sensitive feeders that close when the squirrel climbs on them, and spinning feeders that send the squirrel on a merry-go-round are just a few examples that report varying levels of success.

Before you stock up on all the deterrents money can buy, you might have a useful squirrel-defying tool in your fridge or pantry –- a disposable pie tin. Pardon the pun, but aluminum can foil any cunning squirrel's mischievous scheme. Squirrels avoid aluminum foil, though it is unclear exactly what it is about foil that drives them away. Gardeners offer their educated guesses that it is the foil's shiny appearance, its unnatural texture, or even the crinkling sound when they step on it. Whatever the science behind it, an aluminum pie tin is a kitchen staple you will want to use in the garden if you have a squirrel problem.

Pie tins make great DIY squirrel baffles, and they can be used in different ways. You can attach a pie tin to your bird feeder pole just as you would a store-bought baffle. Cut a slit in the middle of the pan and slide it up the feeder, upside down, at least 5 feet above the ground so squirrels cannot jump up and over it. Be sure the bird feeder is also 10 to 12 feet away from anything a squirrel could jump from – think fences, trees, branches, and roof tops. You can experiment with cutting slats in the pan and folding them down to create more of a dome shape that mimics store-bought baffles.

As an added defense, place another pie tin on top of the feeder, either by cutting a slit to feed it through the top of the feeder's hanger, or by attaching it right on top of the feeder itself using duct tape or super glue. Squirrels will find the little tin roof to be a deterrent. Plus, it will shelter birds as they eat. You do not have to use new pie tins, either. Just give your used tin a good cleaning before upcycling it on your bird feeder. If you do not already have one, Dollar Tree usually keeps them in stock. While birds should be able to navigate around the DIY squirrel repellents on their feeders just fine, pie tins can also be used to keep birds and other pests out of your fruit and vegetable garden.