Pumpkins are tempting treats for many unwanted pests, but most especially squirrels. If you have jack o’ lanterns outside of your home and are concerned about squirrels ruining them, here are some strategies to deter them.
Use a commercial repellent
Look for a brand made using rotten eggs. This will have a strong odor, especially right after it is applied. The smell should fade when the repellent dries, but you should spray your pumpkin away from the home.
Squirrels hate pets
Sprinkle some pet hair around your pumpkin.
Spicy Surprise
You can also mix hot sauce, water, and a drop of dish soap or vegetable oil to help the mixture stick to the pumpkins. You will need to spray them every day, and especially after it rains.
Straight up tabasco sauce can be an effective repellent as well, but it can become messy and can potentially stain both the pumpkin and your porch.
DIY Stink Bomb
Squirrels are repelled by the smell of distilled white vinegar. Vinegar can damage the pumpkin’s skin, so we suggest putting some in a bowl by the pumpkins.
Making a mixture of one part eucalyptus oil, ten parts water, and a drop of vegetable oil or dish soap to help it stick is also known to help. Apply iwith a cotton ball, repeating daily and after it rains.
Stick it to ’em
Squirrels dislike anything sticky. Another option is to coat your pumpkins with a generous coating of a vapor rub or petroleum jelly. This can last for weeks, even through rain.
You can also coat your pumpkins with a spray lacquer, letting it dry. This method will keep away some squirrels, but not every one of them. The spray must be applied to the whole pumpkin, inside and out.
Another solution is to spray the pumpkins with hairspray. You will need to reapply this every day or two, as well as after it rains.
When it doubt, scare them out
Owls are natural predators of squirrels. You will frighten squirrels by placing an owl statue near the pumpkins.
Another option is to place motion-activated devices near the pumpkins to frighten away squirrels.
Ah, the simple pleasure of an impeccably organized pantry. Who doesn’t feel at least slightly re-energized after a bout of over-the-top arranging? As it turns out, squirrels might feel the same way about neatly-organized nuts.
Scientists from the University of California Berkeley report that nut-hoarding squirrel species can be quite particular about their nut caches, putting them away in neat little groupings. This strategy helps them remember where all of their hiding places are. The findings point to just how mentally taxing caching nuts is; however, the organizational abilities of squirrels only go so far.
Aptly called “scatter-hoarders,” squirrels create lots of small caches where they store their loot; lest a crafty competitor or natural disaster wipes out their stockpiles. By having lots of small stashes all over the place, the squirrels ensure that at least some will stay safe. But the more caches you make, the more difficult it becomes to remember where all of them are. That’s where organization skills go a long way, cognitively speaking.
When we humans organize, we tend to put group things into discrete units. Scientists call this “chunking.” We humans do it daily, most regularly with phone numbers. Whether we realize it or not, we break the number into smaller strings—the area code, followed by the first three digits, and then the last four, rather than try to recall an unbroken line of numbers.
This type of chunking helps us remember locations, too. If you have 50 books, you’re never going to be able to recognize the exact location of each one on a bookshelf. But you could likely find any given book if you split the books into categories—say, non-fiction and fiction—and took a mental note of where each chunk is.
Chunking
We consider chunking a key mechanism of human cognition; studies have shown that rats and other animals can also use this critical memory recall strategy (aka mnemonic) in a laboratory setting. However, tests for chunking in wildlife are few and far between.
To find out if squirrels are chunkers, researchers from UC Berkeley gave 45 free-ranging Eastern fox squirrels a series of sixteen seeds from a central location: four each from four different species of plant. Some of the time, they gave them in organized groups. Others, they gave the nuts in a pseudorandom order, where they were mixed, and no species was presented twice in a row.
When the squirrels hid their loot, the scientists used GPS to record the location of each cache. They then reran the experiment, but this time, each time a squirrel hid a nut, the experimenters gave the next from that spot but later on, thus handing out the nuts from different locations each time. Then, they compared how often the squirrels overlapped nut varieties in their caches in each of the trials.
The Experiment
As the fastidious hoarders they are, the squirrels took the nuts handed out from the isolated central location and put them into species-specific storage. It made no difference what order the nuts were handed out in. “This first demonstration of chunking in a scatter-hoarder underscores the cognitive demand of scatter-hoarding,” the authors wrote. If it weren’t mentally taxing to remember all of the hiding spots, the animals wouldn’t need chunking to keep track of their findings.
However, when the researchers began handing out nuts from multiple locations, the animals’ neat little system started to break down. When the nut species were handed out in sequence from various locations, the species overlap was minimal, including up to only two species per cache. However, when everything was mixed and handed out from different places, the rodents’ organizing skills failed. Instead of grouping nuts by species, the squirrels appeared to avoid caching in the same areas as they had previously.
The Results
It’s unclear why the animals changed strategies. The pseudorandom order from multiple locations put a tremendous memory burden on their brains; so the animals should have needed a mnemonic device to remember their organized caches even more than before accurately. It’s possible that their mental capacity couldn’t handle the overload of information. Or, the strategy switch may have been due to the increase in the energetic demand of the organized grouping nuts by species and location when the different nuts are handed out so far apart from one another.
When you actually think about it, the mental energy it likely takes to be a scatter-hoarding squirrel is quite astronomical. Most humans find it hard enough to locate their keys after they put them down ten minutes ago; imagine remembering where you buried a nut in the woods weeks after!
The photo included shows an example of chunking we discovered in a generational squirrel job. We had never seen anything like it in all our years of service, but after finding this study, we are curious to know if we will ever stumble upon a nut hoard again!
Anwar, Yasmin. “Fox Squirrels Use’ Chunking’ to Organize Their Favorite Nuts.” Berkeley News, 15 Sept. 2017, news.berkeley.edu/2017/09/12/nut-chunking/.
Squirrels, some of nature’s cheekiest creatures. We can agree that they are furry, cute, and quite entertaining to watch; however, these animals are rodents and ultimately cause health and safety issues for property owners. Squirrels can cause extensive structural damage to homes and other buildings, ruin crops, even harm other animals by raiding bird’s nests for eggs and chicks. Their droppings spread salmonella and can make humans sick. Our great state of Michigan has six species: the Eastern Chipmunk, Flying, Red, Grey, Fox, and the Thirteen-lined Ground. Proper identification is key in eradicating a squirrel issue, and there are many traits that distinguish one species from another. Apart from damaging crops and threatening bird populations, each species has specific tendencies when taking over a property or structure.
Eastern Chipmunk
Unlike other species, Chipmunk tend to stay on the ground. These squirrels do not use trees or wires for access into a structure. They prefer to exploit an open gap at the base of the structure or chew in through the garage door seal. Once inside they will begin to rummage through things, looking for bird seed or other food storage in the garage. They also chew on wires in the garage or on a car. Chipmunks are carnivorous and known to raid bird nests for eggs and chicks. Chipmunks are typically not hard to control, unlike Red, Grey, and Flying Squirrels.
Flying Squirrel
The most carnivorous, these squirrels are nocturnal and are rarely seen during the day. Flying Squirrels can be very loud in attics; they can also be mistook for a larger animals, such as a raccoon. They enter homes through holes in the soffit, window and door frames, and can chew holes in siding. Flying Squirrels can have multiple den sites; a reason some homeowners believe the problem is gone for good after not hearing any movement for awhile. It is best to trap double digits before declaring the problem eradicated.
Red Squirrel
Nicknamed “red devils” these squirrels nest inside structures and are one of Northern Michigan’s most common problems. Once this happens, it will typically turn into a generational situation and continue for years until something is done. Red Squirrels are excellent climbers; they will use anything close to the home to obtain access to a structure. Red Squirrels will even jump off close access points if nothing is touching! They will chew into the home through the ridge vent, soffit, dormer, crawl space vent, or any other pipe or open gap on a home. Red Squirrels are even known to chew into cedar sided and log homes to obtain direct access.
Grey Squirrel
Grey Squirrels do not tend to chew into structures as much as other species, but they do tend to exploit pre-existing gaps. Once inside, they begin to nest and reproduce, however it is to be noted that Grey Squirrels have multiple den sites and will live elsewhere when not reproducing. Northern Michigan does not see as big of an issue with Grey Squirrels as it does with other species, but they can still cause a disturbance once inside. Like the Eastern Chipmunk, Grey Squirrels are known to be nest-raiders and will consume bird eggs and chicks.
Fox Squirrel
The Fox Squirrel spends more time on the ground than other squirrels and is most active during the day. They enjoy raiding birdhouses to eat eggs and hatchlings but also invade bird feeders, attics, sheds, and garages.
Thirteen-Lined Ground
It is extremely rare to find the Thirteen-Lined Ground squirrel inside of structures. Rather than chewing inside, these squirrels will do their damage outside in the yard. They cause problems with erosion, tear up gardens, and create burrows and holes around the property.
Despite all of their differences, the best method for eradication is by trapping, removing, and maintaining by a licensed wildlife professional. We pride ourselves in staying on the cutting-edge of this type of trapping and have recently implemented new technology that allows customers to get a never-before-seen view of our work. The Arlo camera provides us with a live feed whenever movement is detected in an infested space— we share the videos with the customer which is both an extremely effective tool, but a bonus other trappers do not provide (but more on the Arlo later!). If you are hearing noises in your attic or walls, seeing new or larger than usual holes on the exterior of a structure, or seeing squirrels ransacking your bird feeders, please give us a call.
report that nut-hoarding squirrel species can be quite particular about their nut caches, putting them away in neat little groupings. This strategy helps them remember where all of their hiding places are. The findings point to just how mentally taxing caching nuts is; however, the organizational abilities of squirrels only go so far.
