How To Truly Squirrel-Proof A Birdfeeder

Attracting birds to your yard with feeders is a fun activity and enjoyable. And while bird feeders are very relaxing to look at, filling them with seed isn’t free. If squirrels or deer are eating from your birdfeeders you may feel like you should just pin $20 to it each week!

I’ve battled both squirrels and deer for a long time at my feeders, and I can finally say I’ve defeated them. I have used a variety of methods over the years, and will relay those and how effective, or non-effective they were, as well as show you in great detail my current set up.

But you need to understand, that outside of spending big money on a squirrel-proof feeder, you know, one that closes when a squirrel steps on the perch, then you will need beat them at their own game! And that really just involves keeping the feeder out of reach.

Physics of keeping squirrels and deer out of feeders

Location, location, location

I’m going to say this as clearly as I can. You must keep the feeder out of reach for squirrels, and out of range for deer. Make it so they physically cannot get to it. That is the only way to stop them! What are the requirements?

Squirrels can jump 10′ horizontally and 5′ vertically
Deer can reach feeders 5-6′ off the ground (at least where the seed comes out)

So, you need to locate your feeder 10′ away from any tree, wall, platform, or structure to prevent squirrels from jumping to it. You also need to keep it at least 5′ off the ground, and use a squirrel baffle (or equivalent shield). Don’t believe me on the squirrels? Check out the clip below. It is in my backyard before I redid our bird-feeder set up.

But that feeder is 5′ off the ground, and the pole has a squirrel baffle on it. Well, you can see for your self – the squirrel just jumps right past it and gets on top of the feeder!

And what about deer?

Now when it comes to deer, we need to simply raise the feeder up higher. Make sure the bottom of the feeder is six feet off the ground. To be sure, I placed mine 7′ off the ground.

To keep deer out of your feeder, mount it high enough so that the bottom of the feeder is 6-7′ from the ground. You may need to use a ladder or shepherds hook to refill feeders.

Getting the right pole

For a pole, you have several options. Just know that you need something that will be tall enough. I have some suggestions below:

Pressure treated 4×4 that is 8 or 10 feet tall
A smaller diameter log that is tall
Galvanized tall fence post (these generally run around $40 from Lowe or Home Depot)
A very tall shepherds hook

Pressure treated 4×4

You can buy 4×4’s from most home improvement stores that are pressure treated. This means they will last a really long time and you won’t need to worry about it. Now, you don’t even have to bury it if you don’t want to – just screw some pressure treated 1×4 or 1×6 to the bottom to make a base!

My wife’s cousin came up with this design at right, and it works great for them. The only catch is you either need to use a shepherd’s hook to bring the feeders down for refilling, or a step ladder.

But you will need to purchase a squirrel baffle, and some wrought iron hangers that can screw directly to the post. This will allow you to keep the bird feeders out of reach of deer and squirrels.

Small diameter log

If you happen to live near a forest, or know someone who owns one, then there is a good chance you could source a long log from there. Just scout out a tall sapling pole that is 12-15′ tall, and cut it down. The straighter, the better. Some suggestions would be Black Locust, Eastern Red Cedar, or White Cedar. If you can’t get one of those, other types are fine, but you may want to paint the portion that is buried in the ground, or soak it in linseed oil for several days.

Take off any limbs you don’t want, and if you want to remove the bark, now would be the time. The bark will fall off overtime, slowly, and the pole may look unsightly during this process.

You can bury this in the ground, ideally 3-4′ deep (below your frost line). My Pennsylvania soil is so rocky that I only made it two feet with a post-hole digger until I struck rock, at which point I just figured it was deep enough (it was).

You will then need to buy several wrought iron hooks and screw them up high enough on the pole so that the bottom of your bird feeders is at least 6′ in the air.

Galvanized tall fence post

You can use a galvanized fence post the same as a 4×4, but you will have a more difficult time drilling holes in it for hanging feeders. But it will work and last a lifetime (and probably someone else’s lifetime).

Really tall shepherds hook

They finally started making very tall shepherd’s hooks! Back in 2017-2020, I could only find 8′ tall ones, which still need to be stuck in the ground. Well, because your bird feeder hangs down from the hook, your effective hanging height is shorter than the pole by a couple feet.

But this one is over 9′ tall, meaning that most bird feeders hung from it should be out of the range of a squirrel for jumping (when combined with a baffle), and even too tall for many deer.

Baffles and blockers

Placing a feeder on a pole alone will not stop a squirrel. You need to install a baffle or barrier that they cannot get around. There a few different styles available from many different manufacturers. But you want to install the baffle 4-5 feet high on the pole, as measured from the ground. This will stop a squirrel from being able to access the feeders.

My crude diagram at right tries to illustrate this concept. The baffle doesn’t allow the squirrel a direct path to jump to a feeder. It instead must jump into thin air, which we all know means “no birdseed for you!”

There are a variety of baffles for purchase, and innumerable DIY examples. Here is one I have used in the past on regular shepherd’s hooks. The simple dome/cone ones work great on thin poles like shepherds hooks, but those won’t work on thicker diameter poles or 4×4 posts. For those, you need to buy a specialty type (see here) or use something like a stove pipe.

Squirrel baffles can only do their job when they are mounted high enough off the ground to where a squirrel can’t jump over it. But in conjunction with that, your feeder needs to be high enough so that the squirrel never has a clear path to ‘jump’ to it, so the feeder must be mounted a bit higher than the baffle.

If you aren’t much into do-it-yourself, then I would suggest you head over to our recommended products page, purchase the really tall shepherds hook and round squirrel baffle. Simply put that shepherds hook 10′ from any structure, and mount the baffle 5′ off the ground on the pole (you should just need a screwdriver). That will effectively squirrel proof and deer proof your feeders.

My own squirrel-proof bird feeder set-up

Below you will find a picture of my set up. It was a limb of Black Locust that was very long – 15 feet or more. It being a limb makes it not that straight, but no matter. It was straight enough to protect against the squirrels, but the pole was too thick for a traditional squirrel baffle.

The thickness of the limb made it so the squirrel could reach around the baffle while holding the log. What I ended up doing was using a section of stove pipe, with chicken wire covering the top. The chicken wire is attached to the pipe via sheet metal screws, and then more screws for hanging off the pole.

This is large enough so that the squirrels cannot get around it. And it could work for you, just know that you should put the stove pipe on before you bury your pole! It was quite a chore to attach the pipe (using force to make it snap in place) after the pole was up.

This is how the stove pipe ‘locks’. You push really hard on the pipe to force the two pieces to lock. This is pretty easy to do when you can just sit on the pipe while it is laying on the ground. It is much harder to do once the pole is up!

But the stove pipe has worked great for me, and it would for you too. The only thing I need to do for maintenance is to spray paint it black every couple of years, and make sure the pole is sticking straight up and down. I do this by just pounding random sticks into the ground as needed.