But while it hasn’t produced the graceful, long-distance trajectory of some of the larger models–getting it to do so will require experimentation–I’m satisfied that it works fine. It’s a modest affair, as is necessary given the limited space on my third-floor balcony. So after seeing some clips of squirrel catapults on YouTube, I thought I’d make one of my own. But when a bushy-tailed rodent scares the birds away from my feeder, rips the bottom out of my finch seed sack, and all but flips me the finger when I knock on the window to scare it away, said rodent is no longer cute. My final step was to screw the sheet metal to the bottom of the spacers.I used to think squirrels were cute. I attached them to the post, then slid the tube up over them. I have a table saw, so I cut up a 2×4 into three sticks 1×1.5 inches in size. That meant had a four inch post, so I needed 3 three inch spacers. I made a temporary tube around the pole and measured a three inch gap between the post and the new tube. I looked at lots of commercial versions and none were larger than 6 inches. I decided to make a 7 inch tube since I could, though I am convinced a standard 6 inch furnace tube is good. I was getting ready for a road trip when I remembered I had a left over coil of 20 inch galvanized valley tin I could use to make my own tube. Funny i just added a new list item, must look nice, my wife’s idea. No luck, I did find a piece but it was not pretty. I looked in my store room thinking I might have an extra furnace duct piece as I do furnace repair work sometimes. That meant a special trip to the home supply store, a fifty mile round trip ($7 in gas). After some thought, why not mount strips of wood on the post and slide the tube over them? The day after the second raccoon raid, I knew I had to act now. That would cost me about $6 or what ever the duct cost was. I could just hang it on the post just under the feeder using wire. My first though was, why not use a two foot long piece of 6 inch furnace duct? It is galvanized metal, will look nice, and usually comes as an open sheet of metal that you have to clip together to make a tube. Do not have to remove bird feeder to install.Low Cost, free if possible, construction.Keep the squirrels and raccoons our of the bird feeder.Raccoon emptied Bird Feeder againĬompleted Bird Feeder Raccoon Squirrel Protection Some raccoons are smart enough to climb a metal covered post just like you see the Koala bears climb tree branches. Releasing the animal far away fixed the problem. Next morning, I found a very angry raccoon inside the trap. So I set it out near the bird feeder, and put bird feed on a lid behind the trip plate. I had a live animal trap, one of those where you can do a catch and release. Next day, the same thing happened, the bird bath was overturned, plants eaten and the top was off of the bird feeder. Blood meal is supposed to repel most animals. Just to be even more safe, I sprinkled blood meal around all the plants. Replanted what was left of the plants, went and got some more to fill out some of the holes. I moved the bird bath further away from the bird feeder. Two days later I come out and something had eaten most of the geraniums and gotten into the bird feeder and emptied it. I just bought my wife some geraniums to plant in her new bird bath and all looked great. Our bird feeder was full of tasty grain and looked very appealing I am sure. Last spring it was very dry so there was not a lot of goodies for the local animal population to eat. Our sheet metal bird feeder pest protection shield before installation
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