LittleHawk, I like squirrels too, but ... they are wild and mostly don't make good pets unless they are raised from a pup so's to speak.

My mom fed them, and we had a female black squirrel who would come into the pantry and get nuts for her young when we didn't give her any. Also most of the squirrels in the neighborhood would eat out of our hand. Still, Mom said NOT to reach toward them or get too friendly, because she still had the scar where a "friendly" squirrel bit all the way through her thumb when she was a kid.

We had a friend who was a licensed wildlife rehabilitator. She and her husband got so much pleasure from watching the antics of baby squirrels. They are smart (too smart!) and very playful. I remember laughing myself silly at a squirrel in our yard once. It would climb a small tree, run out on a long, low limb, bounce on the limb until it was bounced off, then run back to repeat the process.

We find that putting a 12 inch square sample of aluminum siding between the hanger (a chain) and the top of the bird feeder defeats the little thieves. Their weight makes it tip them to the ground. They slide right off. They chewed through a couple of feeders before we thought of this though.

Rita Ferrara