Best Nuts for Squirrels & Birds: Fantastic & Wonderful Tips to Feed
Have you ever seen a squirrel’s excitement when finding its ideal nut? Watching them enjoy the best nuts for squirrels and birds is a delightful experience. It is fascinating to see how a squirrel, sitting on its back legs, skillfully rotates and tries to opens the nut.
With quick movements of its tiny hands, it bites rapidly to unshell the nut, working like a member of a well-trained community. Birds, too, eagerly eat their favorite nuts with impressive speed.
Key Takeaways
- Offer Nutritious Nuts: Select the appropriate nuts for squirrels and birds and buy walnuts, almonds, and pecans so that the feeder would give necessary nutrition to them.
- Go Natural with In-Shell Nuts: Furthermore, choose to consume ‘In Shell’ nuts preferably taking fresh and natural products for the benefits of the squirrels and birds teeth and encourage natural foraging.
- Avoid Unhealthy Snacks: Avoid peanuts and corn as they are junk foods without any nutritional value and are destructive to their health; instead opting for fresh nuts and fruits free from mold.
My brother and I frequently observed these scenes, as many squirrel and bird families lived on our backyard trees. Living together, we loved them and gave them plenty of treats and a water bowl.
And, of course, they liked us, too! Every time we shook the peanuts in the bag, they jumped down from the tree trunk, knowing that it was snack time again.
Our New Furry & Feathery Friends & Their Care
When we moved to a new house a few years later, we found new squirrel pals and bird species. By observing white birds I recall my vacations where I saw many beautiful white birds in Kauai.
However, coming toward squirrels, They’re easily identified by their quick movements and climbing activity as they search for up to five miles around them. I’ll keep these thoughts short and sweet, so let’s continue!
Yet some people try to stop them from eating garden vegetables, fruit from trees, and even bird feeder seeds. But squirrel habitats are being destroyed across many regions of America.
What would be the best food for Squirrels?
Squirrels most often eat peanuts or corns. It is important to know that what not to feed squirrels to keep squirrel healthy and active.
How Do I Feed Squirrels?
But in our new home, my brother asked me for ideas, how exactly, he wanted to share snacks with our neighborhood squirrels. I put the steel feeders for the squirrels and we’ve figured out they like that. Despite being metal, squirrels can’t chew it or destroy it, preventing it from falling apart, and the wire mesh on these feeders slows down the speed at which they eat. Here are some tips to help squirrels reach your feeder:
- Put squirrel friendly feeders in or next to the trees.
- Help the squirrels by working for the feeder to be convenient to reach.
- Don’t use weight activated shut offs or baffles.
- You choose foods squirrels will love.
Or, go the extra step and plant a seed table or drill tray having their favorite snacks around your bird feeders.
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What do squirrels love to eat? Thanks to their natural diet, squirrels go nuts for the treats you leave—shelled or unshelled. They’re so good at moving and climbing that they can roam up to five miles around them looking for food.
Of course not all squirrels only eat nuts and seeds. One of their primary foods is plants, but they do sometimes eat a little animal food as well. For instance, the Eastern Gray Squirrel eats insects, amphibians, small mammals, bird eggs, and nestlings. However, plant matter comprises most of their diet, including fruits, seeds, fungi, and small insects.
Squirrels in the wild enjoy tree flowers and buds from various trees, such as butternut, cedar, and dogwood. As people interact with squirrels, they may add new foods to their menu—some healthy and sourced naturally.
Squirrels never stop foraging and even do it close to their nests. To fuel their energetic acrobatics they need high quality proteins, fats, vitamins and minerals in their diets.
But when offering squirrels food, you feed them a variety of nuts, especially English walnuts, which are larger. Cracking large nuts is a real challenge, but don’t worry, you won’t have to go without your nutcrackers. They will handle it!
Squirrels’ Nutritional Importance
Our squirrel friends like each kind of nut, still in its shell, it’s nutritious and tasty. Squirrels get some extra protein by eating acorns, pecans, walnuts, whole roasted pumpkin seeds, pistachios.
Less calcium means giving almonds and hazelnuts less often. Healthy nutrients, some fatty proteins and some squirrels enjoy gnawing on the shells nuts offer. The shells allow them to wind their jaw muscles and keep their teeth. How does one manage that?
- Walnuts: Most squirrels love walnuts.
- Peanuts: Peanuts don’t faze squirrels either.
- Almonds: Almonds are not the only food children can steal from their mothers’ cabinets, squirrels do too.
- Hazelnuts: The other excellent option for squirrels.
- Pecans: Squirrels also enjoy pecans.
- Acorns: In concert with them are oak trees, of which your squirrel will certainly enjoy them because oaks are a natural source of food and nutrition.
Squirrels Also Love Vegetables and Fruits
Even though they enjoy nuts, no dought squirrels are primarily vegetarians and still need to eat other types of food. Yes, you guessed it! That’s why your garden’s fruits and veggies keep disappearing.
If fruits and vegetables are found readily available, both squirrels (and birds) will eat them. Strawberries, apples, grapes, watermelon, bananas, broccoli, cucumber, pumpkin, avocados, peaches, citrus fruits and berries are some squirrel favorite food.
Avoid giving them dried fruit. Fresh fruit (as listed above) is best for their health. However, remember that these are just snacks—so limit how much you feed them. Start by feeding them a few times a week.
Corn and Peanuts
Many people leave out dried corn cobs specifically intended for squirrels, but these can be harmful. Corn, like peanuts, can develop mold, which is dangerous because the fungus can kill our furry and feathered friends. Squirrels[1] need fresh, mold-free snacks, just like hummingbirds need clean feeders.
Tips to Keep Squirrels Happy
We appreciate your love for wild squirrels and know you want to keep them content and safe. Here are some tips on how to take better care of them in your garden:
- Place food around your backyard to mimic natural squirrel behavior, that is foraging.
- While placing food on a bird table is convenient, it could disrupt the feeding habits of birds in your yard.
- Try placing roasted peanuts on a string and watch as they try to remove them, it can be entertaining for you and your family for hours.
- Ensure that bird feeders are secured and that you are providing safe seeds for wild birds at home.
FAQ
Conclusion
It can be really entertaining to feed squirrels and birds ; besides, every person would like to help such active animals exist. You also ensure that they have other foods to eat such as the best nuts for squirrels and nuts for birds, fresh fruits and vegetables that helps them in their growth and development.
Some of the avoidable mistakes are for instance; feeding them items you wouldn’t consider fit for human consumption like peanuts or corn, these are unhealthy and do not contain healthy nutritional value, they are likely to harm their health. Do not forget about nuts in shells as they are good for their nutrition and they gnaw on them helping them maintain their oral health and pass the time.
Rather than go down that road, one should provide natural foods of fresh origin, packed and not moldy, that should resemble the diets that the creatures would so be fed in the wild nature. Hour after hour, how the spunky squirrels that love nuts for squirrels can be entertaining to watch and how the birds love nuts for birds can be fun to have around to the backyard.
Do not feed them by hand and instead use special feeders and spill some food on the ground to allow them go for it as wild squirrels would do. Lis to their actions because they will tell you what they enjoy doing and what they do not which would help in identifying their preferences. Together we can help Squirrels and Birds have more nuts to munch and live more peacefully, can’t we ?
