Do-it-yourself house for squirrels

The squirrel is a magnificent animal worthy of admiration and attention. This is an interesting subject to study.

The animals are fluffy, cute, mostly friendly and extremely mobile, which is very attractive to children. So if you are lucky enough to have a plot near the forest, do not use to make a house for squirrels on it with your own hands, or at least equip feeders for cute people. This will allow you not only to observe the eventful life of animals, but also to make friends with them. Interested in an offer? Then let's see how you can attract squirrels to your garden.

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What does squirrel house mean?

The forest version of squirrel housing is a hollow, in terms of functionality it can be compared with multi-room apartments. This:

1. Food storage (pantry with supplies).

2. Maternity hospital. Squirrels give birth twice a year.

3. Kindergarten. Squirrels stay with their mother until 3 months of age.

4. Protection from bad weather and enemies.

In winter, squirrels can still cluster in groups, but in spring it's time to have children, so each individual goes to look for and equip their own home. This is the time of natural selection. Stronger animals privatize already inhabited hollows, driving the former owners out into the street. That is why it is necessary to put up feeders for squirrels and not be lazy to build housing for them.

No carpentry talent - go to the store. There you can find squirrels of any model: from the simplest analogue of a birdhouse to multi-storey cottages. However, the choice should not be based on the beauty of the architecture of the squirrel dwelling, but on the material and workmanship.

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What should be a good squirrel house

“Under natural conditions, they inhabit oaks and coniferous trees, therefore, it is necessary to recruit just this kind of wood for a squirrel house”

Squirrels are quite capricious and demanding on the proposed housing, therefore, when deciding to buy or make a house for a squirrel with your own hands, you should consider the following tips.

1. Belchatnik is constructed from wood and only from wood. No synthetics. Animals will never settle in plastic, plastic, tin nests. Moreover, they do not recognize a tree for everyone. Under natural conditions, they inhabit oaks and coniferous trees, therefore it is necessary to recruit just this kind of wood for a house for squirrels. In the absence of such material, you can take a chance and make a squirrel from aspen or birch. You should not try to use poplar wood or fruit trees for these purposes. Squirrels will not live in such houses, even with the most luxurious layout.

2. Regardless of where the squirrel will be located: on a tree in the garden or in a home aviary for squirrels, you should not try to ennoble it by covering the boards with varnish or paint.The artificial smell will frighten the animals, and they will not approach such housing.

3. The desire to make the life of animals chic is commendable, however, when building a house for squirrels with your own hands, you should still adhere to the recommended proportions. The animals will be much more comfortable in the compact improvisation of the hollow than in the royal chambers. The optimal parameters of the house are 55x40x45 cm. As for the size of the hole, it should not be made more than 7 cm in diameter.

The choice of materials is also relevant for the design of the feeder for squirrels. Here, too, you can not use any improvised items, such as popular plastic bottles, canisters and other things.

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How should a squirrel house be installed

It is not enough for a squirrel to be comfortable, it still needs to be installed correctly. The squirrel house is fixed directly to the tree trunk, and is not hidden in the branches. Animals must feel safe, so their home should be raised at least five meters high. The opening of the manhole should look either to the south or to the east, the main thing is that this side should not be windward during the main period of the year.

So that the squirrels can improve their abode and insulate it, it is recommended to put a little tow or pieces of moss on the bottom of the squirrel cage. This is an excellent raw material for caulking cracks that can form in the walls of the house over time. For complete comfort of living next to the squirrel cage, it is worth hanging a feeder for squirrels. By doing this, you will contribute to the speedy settlement of the animals in a new home.

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Does a squirrel need care?

Certainly. Like any rodent dwelling, a squirrel house will exude an unpleasant odor and be saturated with bacterial flora. If it is not periodically cleaned, the animals will get sick. Cleaning of squirrel cages both in the squirrel enclosure and in the garden is desirable to be carried out towards the end of the summer season. Important! You need to work with gloves.

As with any home, putting things in order starts with removing the trash. Throw away everything, including insulation if it was placed in the nest. Then all surfaces in the squirrel house are wiped with a damp cloth. After such cleaning, the unpleasant odor should disappear. It remains to lay a fresh bedding on the floor and return the squirrel abode to its place. Squirrels will certainly appreciate the caring attitude and in the fall they will return to the hospitable garden again.

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Do-it-yourself house for squirrels

Buying a squirrel is certainly easier, but this offer is more relevant for those who have no carpentry skills at all. It is not at all difficult to assemble such a structure. For work, you need to stock up on scraps of a board two centimeters thick and thirty centimeters wide. From them or a solid three-meter board, blanks are made for the components of the house for squirrel elements.

On the back wall you need to saw off 55 cm, on the side walls - prepare 2 boards 45 cm long. The front part is made 1-2 cm higher.

This will provide the roof with a slight slope, and water will not linger on it. Porches are built from the remaining pieces. It remains to cut the entrance and you can collect the house. The prepared parts are glued together and taken on self-tapping screws. Such a house is especially good for arranging an aviary for squirrels.

Under natural conditions, squirrels will be more comfortable in a monolithic squirrel, cut from a log of at least forty centimeters in diameter. Thick, without cracks, the walls will make the house noticeably warmer. Its design is more adequate to the surrounding landscape decor. No special skills are required to assemble the structure. The construction of a house for squirrels with their own hands begins with sawing a log.First, a piece of 4 cm thickness is cut off from it, and then a 40 cm blank. In the latter, a rather large cavity is selected. The result should be a kind of bowl with a minimum of three-centimeter wall thickness. Inside, everything can be sanded so that the proteins do not get hurt on the raw surfaces. We saw through the inlet and nail the roof, the blank for which we made first. Belchatnik is ready for use.

With a large enough log, you can build an entire squirrel dormitory. To do this, as in the first case, we cut out 2 thin circles for the roof and bottom and a solid 85-centimeter base. It will be necessary to hollow out the "apartments" from both ends, not forgetting to maintain the minimum wall thickness. Be sure to leave a dividing wall somewhere in the middle of the log. We make a manhole hole in each section and close the ends with prepared covers. A two-story house for squirrels has been built.

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How to equip an aviary for squirrels

“Under the future house for squirrels, a corner should be allocated opposite the window”

For those who are not satisfied with just watching the squirrels frolicking in the garden, you can settle them right in your home. Animals are unpretentious, but they cannot be kept in cramped conditions. They just need to move a lot, and such space can only be provided by equipping a good aviary for squirrels. It is assembled by analogy with the bird, but it has a slightly different equipment specifics.

Under the future house for squirrels, you should highlight the corner opposite the window. The size of the area is determined by the number of animals that are planned to be settled there. Consider building a do-it-yourself aviary for squirrels based on 3-4 residents. Let's talk right away. Animals need height, so it is better not to implement such ideas in a small apartment and houses with low ceilings. Ceiling height must be 3 m.

Assemble the frame, fencing off at least 3 m2 of floor. Strong boards or thick timber can serve as supports. You can, of course, assemble a completely metal structure, but it will be more difficult to fit it into a home interior. In addition, the naturalness of boards and beams will help ensure conditions identical to those of nature.

Support columns are firmly fixed to the floor and ceiling. In the case when the aviary for squirrels is assembled on the street, the supporting elements are dug into the ground. The street version will need a roof. You can neglect this and just tighten the top with netting, but then the houses and feeders for squirrels will be left without additional protection and may require repair or replacement much faster.

The walls of the aviary will also be mesh. This is practical, reliable and will allow you to freely observe the behavior of the captive population. The grid is fixed with self-tapping screws. It is important to make sure that the screws do not go through the boards. Animals can get hurt on their sharp ends. If this happens, then bite off the excess or bend them by hammering deep into the support.

Be sure to equip a small door, because somehow you need to enter the squirrel territory in order to clean the aviary and feeders for squirrels. In the case of street settlements, a simple door is indispensable. Here you will need a whole vestibule. This will allow you to enter without fear that untamed squirrels will break free. In a few months everything will change. Squirrels are very attached to the feeders and their habitat. They can even be let out for a walk without fear that they will run away into the forest.

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What to put inside

First of all, a spreading tree. It can be a live plant planted in a tub or a processed sawn one. Squirrels will happily climb both. A house for squirrels is attached to one of the blank walls of the enclosure.It does not have to be a masterpiece of architecture; a box simply assembled from a sheet of plywood, equipped with a removable roof and having openings for entry, is quite suitable for this role. There, the squirrels will build a nest, which will need to be periodically inspected, and food scraps and garbage removed from there.

Since movement for squirrels is life, be sure to put a wheel with a diameter of at least 30 cm in the aviary. In addition to the nest, squirrels can make a few more shelters where the animals could retire.

Naturally, you can’t do without a feeder for squirrels and a drinker in an aviary. They are usually placed on the floor. If you have to buy a drinker, then you can design a feeder with your own hands. For a home aviary, it is not necessary to make it closed. Here you can improvise and gouge a container from the same log, giving it the shape of a trough, frigate, etc. But this is a job for professionals. Homegrown Kulibin can start with simpler models.

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DIY squirrel feeder

The proposed version of the feeder is not a little more difficult to assemble than the squirrel house. This option is rarely used in aviaries for squirrels, but is often found in parks in Europe. The design is practical and convenient to use. Fluffy beauties are happy to extract food from her. The specificity of the structure ensures that the food poured into the feeder will not be eaten by magpies, crows, pigeons and other large birds. Unlike the house for squirrels, the feeder is made transparent. Its main element is a glass jar. This is a good solution not only in terms of food safety. The glass aquarium gives you the opportunity to watch the eating animal, and it does it surprisingly touching.

So, to assemble a squirrel feeder with your own hands, you will need:

• ruler;
• screws;
• saw;
• glass jar at least a liter volume;
• board 180 cm long;
• sandpaper.

The board is sawn and assembled like a small dressing room. Holes with a diameter of 10 cm are drilled on the sides. A hole is made in the center of the front wall, into which the neck of the glass container should easily enter. The body of the can lies on the board of the elongated bottom and is fixed by the side. Just like a house or a squirrel cage, the feeder will also require maintenance. From there, periodically you will need to throw out litter and leftover food.

Feeder out of the box

This is a unified model of a squirrel feeder. The box should be larger than kefir packs, the proportions of which are quite satisfactory for the birds. A hole is cut in the side wall of the box, and ropes are pulled into the holes cut under the top of the container. For them, an impromptu dining room will be hung on a tree.

open feeder

The most unassuming option. The specificity is that pegs are fixed on a wooden stand, on which corn cobs are strung. Birds are not able to cope with large grains of vegetables and all food goes exclusively to proteins, which do this without difficulty.

How to please a squirrel

What can be put in a squirrel feeder, except for seeds and nuts in the shell? In winter, it should contain dried fruits, without any additives, and pieces of unsalted lard. The latter is rich in calories and vitamins, which contributes to good cold tolerance. Dried mushrooms, oatmeal, and flaxseed may be offered as food. Make sure that the offered products do not contain flavorings, salt and sugar.

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Conclusion

As you can see, building a squirrel enclosure, a house or a feeder is not so difficult, especially if you want to do it.The main thing is not to neglect the advice of experts so that the animals accept your gifts and let you into their world.

Photo gallery - house for squirrels

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Video

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