Gardener Uses a ‘PVC Pipe’ Hack on the Bird Feeder Pole — Says It Has Kept Squirrels Away for Years
With beauty comes the beast. The moment you set up a feeder for your beautiful bird guests, you’ll unknowingly invite scurries of those woolly-tailed squirrels. These pesky rodents will disappoint you by grabbing a snoot-full of snacks and run off with the speed of wind, disappearing like snakes in the grass. For years, these ravenous villains have tested the patience of birdkeepers. Writing in a thread of the Sawmill Creek Woodwork Community, a birder described that his wife developed a bizarre habit of screaming when she stepped into the garden after repeatedly seeing these intrusive squirrels engorge themselves on their feeder.
The trick is to distract, confuse, and disorient the pestering squirrels and manipulate their desire for food to trap them in such a way that they slip away and seek another garden. For instance, by dangling a PVC pipe around the feeder’s mounting pole. As the squirrel will attempt to climb the pole to reach the feeder, the slick and slippery surface of the pipe will repel the squirrel, pushing her down on the ground.
“I put a 2" PVC pipe around the metal pipe that supports the bird feeder. Then, two bare copper wires are wrapped around the PVC. About one wrap per foot. Space the wires about two inches apart. Then connect one wire to the hot terminal of an electric fence. Connect the other wire to the other terminal of the fencer. Haven't had a squirrel in the feeder since. We live in a county where they bring problem bears from cities. Haven't seen one of those at the feeder either,” explained Bill Bukovec in the thread.
In a Reddit post, user u/Ancient72 shared a picture, depicting that they used the same “PVC pipe” trick to deter the pestering squirrels from their feeder. The picture is a time capsule captured from the garden front space of their house. Cascading from the porch stairway is a lush cluster of flowers, plants, bushes, and trees that spread through the garden space. Mounted among these bushes, adjacent to a white lantern lamp, is a T-shaped mount with two feeders dangling on each side of the T’s horizontal stick. The vertical stick is enwrapped in a pastel blue pipe.
Boasting the efficiency of putting this piping on the feeder pole, the Reddit user said, “This has been up for three years now and not a single squirrel has cracked it.” In a comment, they explained the exact measures birders can take to set up this piping on their feeders. “The whole structure must be located at least 10’ horizontally from the nearest tree branch. The bottom of the bird feeders must be located at least 6’ above grade. The top of the 4” dia. duct must be located at least 6’ above grade,” they wrote.
They also suggested using heavy steel screen at the top of the duct “to keep the squirrels from wiggling between the two pipes and getting to the bird feeders.” Another user, u/urban-wildlife-docs, commented on their post, expressing skepticism about this piping protection. “Trust me, dude, nothing works against the squirrels,” they said. The birder, however, reassured them by saying, “The squirrels just cannot get to them.” Sadly, for these squirrels, the Mission Impossible will remain impossible.