Squirrel Behavior

[bravehorse87002]

I feed about 10 squirrels right now.
There are young ones, and about four mommas. and then there is Bear, the old beat up male daddy.
He is really on my nerves. I put out four feeders in various places in my yard. He spends all day taking ALL the food and chasing everyone else away. I try chasing him away but he just comes right back. The only thing is, as he thinks he is hiding it all, everyone else is finding and taking his stores. He is chasing the mommas away and babies.
What can I do? He is on my last nerve. Two of my mommas are no longer afraid of me and will eat while I stand by them, fairly close. So they get food but the others are struggling to get food.

[olorin19]

What are you feeding?

In my backyard, we feed 15-20 squirrels, 4-5 bunnies, 5-6 chipmunks, and many birds. Our two bird feeders attract lots of critters underneath. But we also fling sunflower seed directly onto the ground in two different areas of the yard, where the critters then converge.

If you spread the sunflower seed around, you might be surprised by how many squirrels will eat at the same time and fairly close together.

I give hazelnuts to any squirrel brave enough to approach. it often seems like the less dominant squirrels are quicker to approach than the more dominant ones.This may be as simple as being hungrier. And certainly nursing mamas will be quite hungry.

When I can tell a mama squirrel wants to approach but is initially timid, I lob them hazelnuts with a really high arc so they can track the flight and find the hazelnut. We call this ‘squirrel bocce’, and most squirrels quickly figure it out and soon come closer and closer.

Perhaps you might try this approach as well? If you are lobbing nuts in various directions to different squirrels, surely Bear cannot chase them all at once!

[bravehorse87002]

Mine are pretty spoiled. I feed sunflower seeds shelled and unshelled. I feed shelled walnuts, pecans, hazelnuts and almonds. I also feed mealworms, and they love it.
Bear can chase them all away. They are afraid of him. He is a backyard bully, like a school yard bully.
I do spread the feeders around, as I mentioned.
I decided the others will just find his stashes and eat them…

[Chirps]

Sounds like they may have figured out that it's less work and stress to just watch where he hides the food and go steal it. Which is pretty funny actually. Good for them if they are!

[olorin19]

Bear can chase them all away. They are afraid of him. He is a backyard bully, like a school yard bully.

Is the yard fairly open? How big?

My backyard is about 100' x 45', with lots of shrubbery. No way could one squirrel manage to defend that entire space - too big, but also especially since the shrubbery makes it impossible to see the entire yard.

Any way to break the yard up a bit with visual barriers of some sort?

[bigguy]

I feed mine without feeders. I through peanuts out of a window for them. Some actually climb to the window and get fed by hand. I get about 15 to 20 squirrels here every day. Sometimes I have to give them a fast "hey, hey, hey" to get them from chasing each other and fighting. It doesn't happen to much anymore but there used to be a lot of fights.