[.45Guy]

Any ideas on DISCREET methods of squirrel elimination in my garden? My neighbor feeds the tree rats, so a pellet gun is out, unless I pop a window out in the back room. Does D-con work on them?

[bakert]

They're hard to get rid of. I wouldn't use any kind of poison because too many other animals wind up eating it. Can you use the pellet gun when the neighbor's not home?
http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f241/brumanj/SuperSquirrel.jpg

[.45Guy]

That may work, or like I said I could pop the window in the back room. I just walked out a few minutes ago, and one of the little bas#@rds was digging up my sweet corn. This means war!

[Cosmoline]

A hungry terrier.

[.45Guy]

I'd loose the cats O' war, but I doubt they'd stick around long. The Dachshund might do the job if she'd not make the garden look like it's been carpet bombed:p

[Freddymac]

Take a barrel, drum, or trash can, drill a 3/4" or so hole about an inch from the top edge. Drill another hole exactly across from your first hole and insert a 5/8" wood dowel through both holes. Next fill it half way up with water. Then cut a circle of plywood a little smaller than the inside of the drum . Then screw the plywood circle to the dowel. then screw a ear of corn in the middle of the plywood circle. The squirrel will jump up to get the corn. The top will spin with the dowel as the axel, dumping your squirrel into the water and drowning it... no more squirrel.

not as much fun as a pellet gun, but effective without pissing off the neighbor

[.45Guy]

That may just work.

[Freddymac]

You will want to nail or screw an ear of corn on both sides of the circle so that it doesn't matter which side is facing up.

[ravencon]

An appropriately sized Havahart or similar type trap, camoflauged from your neighbor's view should do the trick. They are widely available. Upon capture you can decide whether to take the offending tree rat for a relocation ride or to recycle its karma.

http://www.havahart.com/

[.45Guy]

What exactly would you use to bait the suckers? That is what would be more tempting than my sweet corn...

[Freddymac]

But i see your problem. Maybe a nice shucked ear on the trap would look like an eaiser meal than having to climb up and chew threw to get at. Peanut butter might attract them because of the smell, but if they like your corn, I would try corn first.

[scooterthegreat]

Ears of corn, peanut butter, bird seed work well for bait.

We have a problem with squirrels as well. The neighbors used to feed them. Now they have a dog. I have two cats, but they are not outside all the time.
Got a wrist rocket last year. Really can't kill them while living in City limits, but they learn that bird feeder = pain. Have also set the live trap out for them then take them out to the country where they belong.

['Card]

I know you live in an urban area, but do you have any friends that are farmers? If so, offer them $10 apiece for any black snakes they might see out in the fields. Black snakes aren't poisonous or anything, and just about any farm boy will see enough of them on a regular basis that slipping a few into a seed bag for you won't be difficult. Then you just release them into your backyard.

See, black snakes are the natural enemies of squirrels. They climb trees well, and will sometimes kill and eat squirrels themselves, but what really drives the squirrels away is that black snakes love eating squirrel babies. It's admittedly not a quick-fix, but if you'll spend this summer building a good black snake population in your neighborhood, you'll never have to mess with squirrels again. I've used this trick at three separate houses now, and it's worked every time without fail.

To deal with the ones that are actually eating your goodies now? I guess I'd go with the traps. I caused quite a stir three years ago when we first moved into this house by standing on my back porch and blowing the little bastards to hell with my 12-gauge. I didn't see the problem with it, personally. There's nothing but three miles of woods behind my house all the way to the river, and I'm from WV where people don't see anything odd about shooting from your back porch. Turns out the residents of upscale North Carolina subdivisions have a somewhat different take on the matter. :cool:

We're not in the city limits, so I wasn't breaking any laws here, but I was threatened with a "strongly worded letter" (*snork*) from the Homeowner's Association. :)

[bakert]

.45guy, you asked about bait. The little sumb--- s love the black sunflower seeds I put out for the cardinals, finches, titmice and chickadees. If they're in your garden they'll come to a few handfuls of those seeds. We have a couple of stray neighborhood cats(another nuisance) hanging around that get one at times and occasionally a coopers hawk will get one. If you try the Havahart trap be careful because squirrels bite HARD!!

[Art Eatman]

HavAHart traps are galvanized. Garbage cans are either galvanized or are plastic. None will rust.

Sad things can happen if a person trips and stumbles and drops the HavAHart into a half-a-trashcan of water.

I was reminded of this from having won a trophy for swimming further underwate while in a gunny sack than any other infant in history. My mother had to take me back, and the poor lady never fully recovered...

Art

[JohnBT]

I'm going to keep feeding them bird seed and when the end of the world as we know it comes you'll be eating MREs and I'll be dining on fried squirrel, dove, pidgeon and probably the finches and sparrows, too. I might even have to eat the 2 possums if things are really bad. ;)

Here in the inner city we don't have room for real livestock, although a general's daughter I used to know said that the rat kabobs she had in Panama were very good.

John

[Pumpkinheaver]

Rat trap and peanutbutter.

[mec]

Only trouble with any sort of loose bait is that it will just attract more of them. I have a back porch with one window out. the .22 short mini caps from a rifle are quieter than a pellet gun and the porch muffle them further. I only shoot squirrels when they are backed up by a tree as these 20 grain bullets clock 700 fps and you have to keep them in the yard. Ive paid for the rifle about two times over in squirrel meat.

[Loyalist Dave]

I'd use a big rat-trap, and peanut butter. They don't call them "tree rats" for nothing. drill a hole in the trap and use a piece of florist wire to secure it to a solid object.

BTW unless it's a heavy urban setting, they will still be eating nuts and fruits in suburbia. You might want to check into squirrel recipes. You also might want to check game laws, as taking game in many states is the same in any enviornment. Would be kinda different to get charged with "poaching" in a townhome community, eh?

LD

[.45Guy]

I just nailed one of the suckers with the wrist rocket at about 30 feet. Didn't do much, but I do have the feeling I ruined his day.

[mec]

http://www.thehighroad.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=37550&d=1143387680
Excellent source of lean meat. I just clocked a single 22 short mini cap at 688 fps this morning. checking out my chronograph to make sure it is working. Have to be careful with a 29 grain bullet at this velocity but on rare occasion it will stay with a squirrel shot end to end.

[~z]

outrageously nice skinning job, you making puppets in your spare time?
~z

[mec]

Yeh. make them into a glove and go,
" Auntie Em! Auntie Em! There's no place like home!"

[~z]

Do you do birthday partys? I'm thinking about having kids just to see the look on their faces.
~z

[roo_ster]

Yeh. make them into a glove and go,
" Auntie Em! Auntie Em! There's no place like home!"
I just about snorted icewater all over my keyboard.

BTW, my gramps said squirrels were good eating if you don't look at the pink bones. He said the pink bones gave hm the willies.

[mec]

Definately a part of the food chain. The bigger one's can be tough and need slow cooking while the smaller one's fry up quick and tender. they are real good with Uncle Ben's variously flavored rice. I have more than paid for the Remington rifle I use to collect them just eating the meat. the dog next door get the inwards and skin and is my good friend. When a squirrel gets up the tree and starts making fun of him for being a dog, he has this special bark and fairly frequently, I managed to dump the Squirrel for our mutual delectation.
Squirrels do such cute things! this one was about to eat or cabbage off with this pecan right before he expired.
http://www.thehighroad.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=37549&d=1143385676

[redneck2]

Dude....LMAO...

in the hillbilly area I used to live in, our neighbors had the annual Spratley Lane Labor Day squirrel fry

drink all night until you passed out. Up at early light for the competition to see who could whack the most tree rats. Come back to the house, skin 'em out and cook 'em up (while drinking vast amounts of Old Style)

them were the good old days

Glad to see you're not wasting the meat. Campbell's Cream of Mushroom and a few hours in a roasting pan in the oven make a great meal

[kjeff50cal]

mec is that a Remington bolt action or the CBC copy (Mod-122)? I have the CBC clone and it takes Remington magazines. Sweet shooting gun The bushytails quiver in fear of it.... :D

http://www.thehighroad.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=37549&d=1143385676

[mec]

yes indeed. the mushroom treatment works with everything.

[mec]

Its a 521 T made from 1947 into the 50s. It will shoot the short mini--caps into about an inch at 25 yards. It actually functions the shorts better than the long variety. I bought it used with a rotted out magazine and bought the new mag from Numrich gunparts.

[kjeff50cal]

Mec, I looked at my CBC Mod 122 (AKA Magtech) there are a few differences but they do take the same mags. Here's a pic of my CBC (which as I understand made guns for Remington in the 1970s). This picture is before I mounted a 3 X 9 scope on it and I was ammo testing at 25 yards.

http://www.thehighroad.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=40126&stc=1&d=1147922771

[mec]

looks like a lot of similarities there. the bolt shroud may be more like the one called a 40 (and some letters)

[chrisbob]

As I said for the rabbit problem they are goood eating if prepared right but check local laws you can eliminate many pests year round with out a hunting licence, If you adhere to local the laws of the local authority.

[.45Guy]

I just talked to my elderly neighbor. Apparently he traps them in a homemade live trap and then.......disposes of them:evil: He's on number 51 for this spring. He's also given me a trap, and agreed to give me the meat from those he catches. BTW, they're great parboiled in beer, then thrown whole on the grill slathered in BBQ sauce.

[mec]

You have just arrived in gustatory nervana. Squirrels, a renewable resource.

[bowfin]

I second the rat trap and peanut butter nomination.

The rat trap also gives you legal cover, no one can blame you if a squirrel gets caught in your war against big, ugly, vicious sewer rats.

Make sure you go with a Victor, since their springs are a little stouter than the imported ones. A 110 Conibear would work best, but you might have to shield it from public view.

...and I would choose squirrel on the menu over pheasant any day.

[Matthew N. Dodd]

A few weeks after a problem squirrel stopped showing up to break into my shed to raid dry goods I pulled out the bag of ant poison to salt the perimeter of the house and discovered why.

Turns out he ate quite a bit of it.

Stupid squirrel. Had to go buy more ant poison.

Traps seem like a good way to do it though. Ability to confirm your kills etc.

[.45Guy]

I do have a few Conibears about from the muskrat days. Might have to give em a try. Little buggers are certainly brave enough to go right up and try to get the peanut butter on the trigger tines.....

[bowfin]

Don't forget to swap all the tails to Mepps for fishing lures, 40 cents in trade.

That's almost like a bounty on the little rodents.

[Matt G]

Crossman 760s with rifled barrels and hollowpoint lead pellets are extremely effective on squirrels within 20 yards. Use 10+ pumps and make the target either the ear or the forward part of the chest (the lungs are very high and forward on a squirrel); they drop with a thud. When I was living on campus back when, I had more than one pot of Brunswick stew using this method. Given that all of the squirrels were fed exclusively on the large volume of acorns and pecans in the trees around campus, they were fat and sleek, and a good test of an airgun's killing ability. I can't recall ever wounding one and failing to recover it, but a lot of the reason may be that I refused to take long or questionable shots. A nice thing about airguns is that 7g pellets just don't have any energy to speak of when they tumble back to the ground from a straight-up shot; they're about like large birdshot.

[jeepmor]

I'm more impressed to hear that they taste so good and are not being wasted or their carcasses left laying around attracting other predators. Albeit, that's not a bad idea if you live where you can get away with it. I can't, I'm in Suburbia with a fair amount of green space in the vicinity, but nothing more than a pellet gun would acceptable. Plus, next door neighbor is ALWAYS home, have to be stealthy if I wanted take anything out. We had a raccoon problem when we first moved in. A mother actually had some kits under our deck. That was fun...just kidding. Dogs would go under there and chase em around, never caugt one. They eventually moved on. I thought about popping em, but had no way to get under the deck so I just waited til they moved on.

We have a squirrel that lives in the neigbors tree and my wife just loves him, so that one's off limits for me. And he is smart enough to continually avoid our two cats still using our yard as a major traffic route. We have a lot of squirrels in the neighborhood if evidenced by the 1 or 2 a week you see that were victims of roadkill. The smart ones cross the streets on the powerlines above the road. Pretty impressive balancing act.

I would like to get a pellet gun to take out some grey jays though. Those squawky birds plant acorns in my flower beds every year. And try to break them on my roof bashing them on my skylight frames or doing a dive bomb on the culdesac drive. It's impressive to watch, but their squawk is annoying and our old cat (now 16) has slacked off on bird control the past few years. Her replacement just isn't that keen of a hunter.

They haven't been too annoying this year, but I've seen em around. There's been a family in the neighborhood for years. If it becomes an issue again, a rifled pellet gun will be on the list.

jeepmor

[dracphelan]

This the solution that worked for me:

I already have stray cats in the neighborhood. Every morning & afternoon I put out a small bowl of dry cat food for them. This encouraged them to stay in my yard. I actually watched a cat dope slap a squirrel and chase it out of my yard. I have also seen the cats playing with the squirrel tails. :D

[Paladin7]

I you really want to get rid of them the Hava-heart or similar traps baited with peanut butter work great, and within a few weeks you will have a major dent in their population.

I know where I live, in suburbia, you cannot kill them unless they are doing damage. Check your local laws.

I have taken quite a few with an RWS Air Rifle, but its more sport than pest control, having to take the time to wait them out, stalk for the right shot, etc. And it can get you in trouble if your neighbors catch you and report it. Most I got in one day is 3, very fun.

[Art Eatman]

LIke I've said, it's sad when a fella stumbles and drops his HavAHart into a trashcan full of water...

:), Art

[redneck2]

trouble with squirrels is they're tough little buggers to skin out unless you know the tricks

an 1,100 fps .177 RWS air rifle is plenty good. DRT. Quiet.

Traps probably work great, but lead poisoning is more fun and satisfying

[qajaq59]

I have a friend who during the Depression nailed rat traps high up in trees to catch squirrels. It obviously would work well, but I'm not sure that would be legal anymore.

[MCgunner]

trouble with squirrels is they're tough little buggers to skin out unless you know the tricks

Skin 'em before they cool off and they ain't so bad. just cut the base of the tail through the bone, but not the hyde, cut up the legs a bit, stand on the tail and pull on the hind legs. comes right off like an overcoat. Then, all ya gotta do is get his pants off. :D

[veloce851]

Hmmm, now if only one could figure out how to turn tree rats into an alternative fuel source :)

You could run a VW rabbit off the little buggers.

I suppose it would give new meaning to the old joke about tiny cars having squirrles under the hood.

['Card]

One cut up the belly, take the guts out.
Cut off the head, tail, and all 4 feet.
Pinch the fur up around the middle of his back to get the blade under it, and then cut the fur in a circle around his midsection.
Get your fingers under his hide and peel it off by pulling in each direction. Comes off perfectly slick in two big pieces.

[Clipper]

When I was a kid, my dad got a bundle of 3/8" X 5' aluminum tubing somewhere for a project, and I selected a piece from the leftovers, and made a blowgun...3/8 dowels with long wire tips would nail a squirrel to a tree @ 50' quite well. Didn't take too long to become quite accurate, and was deadly on small critters and birds.

[Matt G]

Clipper, how did you make your darts? As an urban college student, I used to use commercial blowguns with commercial wire darts with either sharpened spade tips, plastic spear head tips, or just sharpened ends, in attempting to hunt squirrels. I found that they were less than satisfactory. They would thump hard into the squirrels' meaty places, and I would watch the flourescent orange dart head run away through the trees. :( After a few very hard-blown darts hit precisely on the mark without dropping the squirrel, I called it quits for blowguns on squirrels-- they just weren't humane. The worst was when I watched my roommate put one into a squirrel's head without putting it down. :(

I went out and got a Crossman 760 ($39 at Oshman's Sporting Goods), and never looked back. As lame as that itty bitty little 7g .177 pellet at about 650fps is, it simply blows away the there or four types of commercial darts that we were shooting out of our assorted sized blowguns.

[Sven]

As others have said: pellet gun. Shoot from indoors through a door or window.

[Clipper]

I cut a piece of dowel maybe 6" long and glued a large canvas needle into the end. I have also used golf tees shortened until they fit for practice...They are great stray dog stingers! The tees also work with needles if you loosely wind some cotton around the front end of the dart to help center it in the bore. Sharpened knitting needles work well, too. If you can find a copy of 'A Sporting Chance' on e-bay, it gives a good tutorial on blowgun theory and practice.

[Browns Fan]

I had a 40 lb chow. She was small, but very quick and death on squirrells in the yard. I would come home from work sometimes and find pieces of squirrell in the yard. She also hated cats, killed one that I know of.

[Darkker]

Personally I used to derrive alot of pleasure by useing thumper tips on my bow. Now I'm outta town and just blow them to bits. But the bow in town works well. Usually won't kill them, unless it is a pinning, or crushing shot. I usually tried to hit them sideways, knock them off a tree, and roof.
It would piss them off enough they didn't come back near the house with the confederate battle flag in the window.

[huntershooter]

I use Aguilla .22 "Colibri's" out of a CZ rifle with a 4X scope (dialed in for the Colibri's). It works great on squirrels & rabbits. My neighbors are blissfully unaware of the carnage taking place 40 ft. from their door.

[kbheiner7]

A single shot from a pellet gun once in a while isn't likely to draw attention from anyone.

The first year I lived in this house, the fattest squirrel I've ever seen was raiding my strawberry patch. :cuss: He was a cute little bugger, but I like my strawberries. :evil:

[Sunray]

"...use any kind of poison because.." It's illegal in most urban places. So are traps. As is shooting them with anything. Blood meal, however, isn't. It's found in most gardening supply places. Sprinkle it around the yard and the tree rats will leave. Something about the smell of blood repels them. Doesn't bother Fluffy or Fido.

[chrisbob]

quote "My neighbor feeds the tree rats so a pellet gun is out"

a pellet gun is considered a firearm in the eyes of the law so is a bow w/arrow also a sling shot and any gun regardless of the ammo. "JAIL SUCKS"

[PCGS65]

I use my pellet gun by just opening my sliding glass door a bit off my deck. It just happens to be about 4-5' above grade so I'm at an elevated position. It gives me a great view of my yard and also helps when they run up a tree. My neighbors can't see me and I also have a 10x scope mounted on a crossman 2100 pump that shoots 850fps. It works quite well but just recently the seals are going bad from over 3000+ rounds through it. So I'm going to have to get another one.
The only problem is once you eliminate them others always keep moving back into the area. By the way they love to dig up my tulips and any other flowers I plant in the yard.:banghead: :cuss: ;)

Oh I forgot to mention this is what I might do if I had a squirrel problem.

[JohnKSa]

a pellet gun is considered a firearm in the eyes of the law so is a bow w/arrow also a sling shot and any gun regardless of the ammoWhile I know of a few places that define airguns to be firearms (most outside the U.S.), I know of no areas with laws that classify bows and slingshots as firearms.

[PCGS65]

by JohnKSa, I know of no areas with laws that classify bows and slingshots as firearms.
John no they don't but they classify them in the all inclusive "dangerous weapons" category!!:banghead: :mad: You know like a rubber hose.:cuss:

[david_the_greek]

whether they are classified as firearms or weapons did not matter in my neck of the woods. my good friend had the entire swat tactical team (snipers and everything) surround his house and he was pulled out (with two other friends), slammed into his car and had a benelli tactical pointed at his head. lesson he learned? don't pop off cans through your window with your $35 bb gun that wouldn't be able to take life unless you sharpened the barrel and used it as a pungee stick. if you tried to hit someone with it, the gun would just break into peices. Lets just say the police in my area are a litle over bearing and unfortunately my friend didn't think about making trouble for them at the time

[Highland Ranger]

Kill them and put their little heads on sticks on the fence around the perimeter.

:evil:

(air gun is a firearm in NJ where we don't understand the meaning of the word "fire" apparently)

(also illegal to kill squirrels . . . . . . but they do seem to have a lot of "accidents" in my back yard)

[.45Guy]

Time to dig up an old thread. The little SOB's are taking it to the next level now. One is actually building a nest on top of my chimney, no doubt in hopes of asphyxiating me.;) I'll see if I can get a picture of it in action before I deal with it.

[Sniper X]

I'd get a Marlin model 60 and some .30gr SSS Colibri sub sonic and dispatch them that way. These rounds are way way quieter and more powerful than the 1000fps pellet guns, and as accurate. They are about 1/3 the sound level of a high power pelet gun and don;t make a sproing noise. I had a 60 and bought some and use to even use them in my back yard in town to dispatch prarie dogs, my neibor could be in his back yard and never knew what I was doing.

[308win]

If you need something stealthy get a couple of packs of the sticky pads that they sell in the hardware store to control mice & rats. They are about 6X6 or so and are very STICKY.

[.45Guy]

308, I'm really liking that idea. I wonder what the neighbors will say when I have a tree rat stuck to my chimney.:D

[gezzer]

A long, long, long, time ago I lived in the PRMA in Moscow on the Charles, not my choice it was my parents. When I got married and my first house in this urban jungle of communism,

We were remodeling, Squirrels had invaded the attic where I was building a dormer. That spring and summer I shot over 100 squirrels with a 5mm Sheridan pellet rifle. NO ONE ever heard it, as I shot from inside and always made sure the squirrel was against the tree (maple min 18" dia).

Another method I used and got even more that year was a plastic garbage barrel filled 1/2 way with water. The cover had a 5 " hole cut in the center. Every morning 2-3 would be dead and transferred to another trash barrel for pickup.

I never made a dent in the population in the 5 years I lived there. We moved to rural NH and I wish had that population to hunt now!!

[Troutman]

<<Does D-con work on them?>>
It can. But it’s a long shot. Don’t know if they will take to that bait. That D-con stuff is an anticoagulant, contains warfarin. Moderate toxic/ multi-dose. It takes several feedings over a period of days to be effective. If they became resistant to it. All bets are off.
Their may be other things like Brodifacoum (Talon), in it as well...which is a single dose anticoagulant, to help out the warfarin. Don’t hold me to that though!
I did try, sodium fluoroacetate (spelled right? can’t even pronounce it, more less spell it), at one time. It will work faster than D-con will. Just put it on their favorite bait, out in the morning, by sundown, take it in. By the morning, you better get up early, to retrieve the bodies. Burn em’, like zombies. Or bury em’, seriously…Don’t let the other wildlife eat them (secondary poisoning, that’s with any kind of poisoning, though). Keep dogs and cats, inside, when baiting and overnight, till you collect the carcasses.
Note: compound 1080, is an exceedingly toxic chemical. Kills rapidly, faster than the D-con stuff, anyway. Give it about 30 min. or so.
So. When handling it. Get yourself a tape recording of that 60’s, “lost in space” show, of: DANGER! DANGER! Will Robinson... and keep playing it, to remind you of that danger!
I don’t know if 1080 is still available, that second best would be Fluoroacetemide…….I hate to spell those dinosaur names, (compound, 1081)

[dvnv]

I don't know if this qualifies as discreet...but it seems worthy of a try.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=f5d_1172741350

dvnv

[Troutman]

<<I don't know if this qualifies as discreet...but it seems worthy of a try.>>
That’s a trip, all right!
No problem with that! Hey! You can tell the PETA people, where else can a squirrel be entertained by bungee diving.
People have to pay $35 at Six Flags for that kind of thrill/entertainment

[rcsund]

I like the Aguila 22 with no powder. I shot them from a Remington 22 pump with a little 4x scope. They turn my 22 rifle into a pellet gun with a little ump. You will hear nothing expect the firing pin. Sounds like a dry fire. From a pistol they sound like a cap gun. They will not cycle an auto. My neighbor (the cop) likes to come over and barrow it for mice.

[buck460XVR]

As others have said: pellet gun. Shoot from indoors through a door or window.

............that's my method for the rabbits that eat my blueberry bushes.


.............this is what happens when you shoot squirrels off the bird feeder with a paintball gun.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v333/buckanddot/birdfeeder.jpg




did you know, when you hit a squirrel squarely with a paintball, that it will jump straight up in the air....and if you continue to shoot at where he was.... sooner or later he will fall back down only to be hit again?:D

I don't know if this qualifies as discreet...but it seems worthy of a try.

yep.....that's worth a try.;)

[sansone]

how about colibre or super colibre(supers are quiet from a rifle)

[jeffkirchner]

psst, .45Guy, Just between you and me...and thousands of other people...You don't have to pop out one of your windows to use a pellet gun on those varmints. Just cut a small (half inch) hole in the screen, at the bottom, right corner. You don't even have to stick the barrel outside. ;) At least that's what I've heard.

[Mike U.]

Super Collibris work in a pinch for me. When I can get away with it, I use CCI CB shorts. They're a skosh louder, and zip out @ 710 FPS, but still quiter than my Gamo Shadow @ 1000 FPS. I'm looking forward to my snowbird neighbors semi-annual migration back north next month so I can break out the sub-sonics. The damn varmints keep getting into my attic and chewing everything up. Every time I whack one group of the little SOB's, another group pops right back two weeks later! :banghead:
Death to the little roof munchin' tree rats! :evil:

[packingdressagerider]

Mike U., if these things are getting into your attic, I think it might be fun to use one of these Rat Electronic traps. Bait it with peanut butter, or cheese, then wait. http://www.horse.com/products/gift-0__sku-BAA15.html

I have a smaller trap for Mice. I also use Catchmaster sticky glue traps.

I think the problem of using a pellet gun would be having adequate backstop. Even with a pellet gun, a person should maintain control of that pellet. Any way, where I live there is a city ordinance that prohibits the use of bows, pellet guns, firearms (only for self defense). I could not practice with my bow in the back yard. That does not mean, I have not tried my hand with a sling shot against Squirrls, and cats. There aren't any laws against sling shots.
Stanzi

[106rr]

I suggest the use of a Havahart trap. You can then take the trap to the local anti gun political party headquarters and leave the live squirrel as a campaign donation. This also works for old tires, waste oil (in neat containers) and some old furniture. Donations should be made at night and left with a note so they will know it's a donation and not a dump issue.

[jmorris]

I used to try and keep the squirrels out of all the pecans around our house; it looks like a Disney movie, now I just try to keep them out of the house. 22 CB’s make the least amount of noise. I suggest planting more corn.

[roo_ster]

I tried out a CCI CB long in my Beretta 21A. Sounded like a loud firecracker. Too loud for my urban area.

I also tried a Benjamin-Sheridan pump .177 pellet pistol. Nice & quiet...but would not penetrate a shorty Coke can after 10 pumps. Inadequate.

Maybe a CO2 pellet pistol in .22?

[Mike U.]

While I like the idea of trapping the little fuzzy tailed monsters, it's not nearly as much fun as shooting them. :D
I will try the glue traps as I'd been considering those anyway. Just isn't as much fun, ya know.

jfruser,

Have you tried the CCI CB shorts out of a rifle yet? They are much quieter out of that longer barrel. I use them in an old Winchester model 150 lever gun and they are squirrel-doom at across the yard ranges. I also use the super Collibri's out of that gun, but, they aren't as dead-on accurate as the CB shorts. They shoot Minute-Of-Squirrel just not squirrel's head kind of accurate.

[koja48]

Beeman R-7 with its low decibel rating shot from inside a house thru an open window against a good backstop works. House functions as a suppressor. I have zero tree-rat problems & the neighbors have no clue.

[arctictom]

I had a huge tree rat problem, I tried shooting them , trapping them , etc, a biologist friend explained to me that I could not keep up with the population , at 2 litters a year here, may be more down where you are, and 8 to 10 in each litter , ( I had 5 gallon buckets of squirrels ) .
I suggest you kill a couple at a time an put them up in a notch up in a tree, or on a stump and encourage the predators to come around more often.

[koja48]

2 litters a year . . . 8 to 10 in each litter

Self-replenishing targets with a multiplier . . I LIKE that!

[mbt2001]

Tree Rats are a pervasive enemy requiring a multifaceted / multi layered approach.

1.) Get a Fox terrier or the like. Good dog alarm dogs, they can go camping and hiking with you... They positively go nutty on varmints. They were made to dispatch them and have strong hunting instincts.

2.) Spread Fox and Bobcat scent around your yard. I do not know much about your set up, but this will scare the squirrels and MIGHT actually attract said predators...

3.) Get this http://www.smarthome.com/6120.html That should scare the little wretches.

4.) Pellet gun. I would suggest spring over air, as they are quiter and deadly. To use on the worst offenders... Like the one eating your corn.

[Sawdust]

Fifty foot shot with Beeman 1000 spring air rifle yesterday in the backyard from inside the kitchen.

Sawdust