How To Out Smart A Ground Squirrel

Ground squirrels can be a problem for those with gardens. We certainly have our share of them and I keep them out of our leaf greens by having a totally enclosed garden box with hardware screen on all 6 sides. However we do have current and gooseberry bushes that produce heavily each year and the ground squirrels eat all the fruit off them leaving a mess behind. They are large bushes that can not be protected by fence or netting.

I finally figured out how to avoid that by feeding them myself. I keep them full with unsalted peanuts and they like the peanuts so well they don't bother the bushes. In the past I have live trapped them and taken them to other places but the peanuts are a better solution. I started out by putting a few where they like to sit in the sun and they quickly figured out how to shell and eat them. Now they wait for me to toss a handful out to them.

A $5.00 bag of peanuts enables us to keep them out of our bushes. When I was live trapping them they seemed to have a highly developed homing instinct and it would often be a race to see who got home first. Now I couldn't drive them away as long as I don't run out of peanuts. I have noticed that ours are now a different species because they have bare bellies as they have gotten so fat their bellies drag the ground as they run. Either that or the peanuts have made their legs shorter. Either way the currants are developing nicely as are the gooseberries.