Do It! How to Guard Your Bird Feeder from Squirrels and Raccoons

Watch the previous or next video in our series of tips for your yard.

While feeding birds in your yard is a popular pastime, squirrels and raccoons can often empty or destroy a bird feeder in no time flat. To keep furry critters away from bird feeders that are mounted on a pole, make a DIY guard from a piece of 6-inch stovepipe and end cap.

To make a homemade squirrel and raccoon guard:

• Step 1: Buy a 2’ long piece of 6” diameter stovepipe, a 6” diameter stovepipe end cap, 3 sheet metal screws, and a hose clamp.
• Step 2: Clamp the end cap to a piece of scrap wood, and use a metal bit or hole saw to drill a hole in the center of the end cap the size of the bird feeder pole.
• Step 3: Secure the stovepipe end cap to the stovepipe with sheet metal screws.
• Step 4: Remove the bird feeder from the pole, and attach the hose clamp to the bird feeder pole to support the stovepipe guard.
• Step 5: Slide the stovepipe guard over the top of the pole, so it rests on the hose clamp.
• Step 6: Place the bird feeder back on the pole.

Watch this video to find out more.

Further Information

• Wild Bird Feeding Basics (article)
• How to Make a Squirrel and Raccoon Bird Feeder Baffle (article)
• How to Keep Squirrels Away from Your Bird Feeder (article)
• Keeping Mice, Rats, and Squirrels Away from Bird Feeders (article)

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Danny: Hey Julie has written some great articles for our website at todayshomeowner.com, a Special section called “Around the Yard.” And Julie, occasionally you hit on a subject that a lot of people are interested in, and one of them involves a bird feeder.

Julie: This has been a very popular topic because we all love to feed the birds, but we don’t always love to feed the squirrels and the raccoons. So I have instructions for a simple project, for a baffle that is squirrel proof and raccoon proof. The baffle itself is made out of stovepipe, a two-foot section with a cap for the end. You can buy this already cut. It comes in black, it also comes in possibly other colors or paintable galvanized.

Danny: Boy that was tricky putting that lid on there – the top of it. And also, you know, having to drill the hole of course, dead center, same diameter as this. And then it took a little while to get that on, didn’t it?

Julie: It really was tough, you kind of have to work that on there. But once you get it, you use some self drilling screws to attach it around the edges, and you are ready to install.

Danny: Let’s slip it over here, see if I can guide it through there, there we go. And, rest down there, this goes back on top, and tonight dinner will be for just the birds.