Please Don't Grease Your Pole!

Several customers have recently mentioned that they have greased their feeder poles to keep squirrels from getting up to their feeders. Please do not grease your poles to keep squirrels away!

Greasing poles can be very harmful to birds and it's not healthy for squirrels either. Most clinging birds will grip onto feeder poles and if there is grease on the pole it will get all over their feathers. Birds cannot clean the grease off their feathers, making it difficult for them to fly. In addition, it makes it hard for them to regulate their temperature (creating an insulating layer of warm air between their feathers and skin during cold weather), and it makes it hard for them to stay dry in wet weather.

If you feed birds but don't want to feed squirrels, come in and let us share with you many safe options for discouraging squirrels. We can introduce you to foods that squirrels don’t like, but birds sure do! We have squirrel-proof feeders that are weight-sensitive and close up on squirrels, which weigh a lot more than birds (a chickadee weighs less than a nickel!), and baffles that fit on your pole and keep the squirrels from reaching your feeders.

We hope you will pass this information on to others. The more informed we are, the better chance we have of protecting the birds we all love.