What Do Squirrels Eat In Your Home And Yard

1. Nuts

Squirrels use nuts for survival, particularly during the winter season when other food resources become super scarce. This inborn tactic to store acorns against the future is indicative of ensuring a constant food supply during the year and testifies to the high degree of their preparation for seasonal changes.

2. Fruits

Along with other varieties of diet, squirrels enjoy various fruits as well. You can particularly feed their favorite fruits like apples, pears, and berries. They also love seasonal fruits which they frequently search in orchards and gardens.

They are proficient at storing their fruits for the future so that they can eat them. They either consume it from their storage or directly from the trees or bushes.

They are skilled at locating and savoring these treats all year round because they have a preference for ripe, sweet fruits.

3. Dog and Cat Food

These squirrels do not let the opportunity slip away, especially if it's left out for dogs or cats. Though these foods comprise a high percentage of fat and protein, they may not be appropriate for squirrels. Regular pet food intake may result in various nutritional disorders so they would probably avoid it after stealing a few times.

4. Eggs

Unlike fruits, vegetables, or nuts, eggs are less common for squirrels to eat. But sometimes they may raid the nests of birds to get eggs, mostly when they have a shortage of other food sources.

This occasional source of diet is rich in protein and fat, despite their main sources of nutrition are fruits, nuts, and seeds. A squirrel's diet may include hatchlings, young chicks, baby birds, and the carcasses of hapless chicks that have fallen from their nests if needed.

5. Cheese

Like their mice companions, squirrels are also known to eat cheese. Though not naturally occurring, or commonly occurring in their diet, they could often obtain it in places where people have littered their leftover foods.

Squirrels go for cheese when they hardly have much opportunity to feed on more natural fatty types of foods. However, as it may be too rich and might not balance the right nutrients needed, they slowly give up on it.

6. Cereals

Squirrels do eat some cereals, especially those in the garden, from bird feeders, or in residential areas. Being opportunistic feeders, they may forage for leftover breakfast cereals, corn, or oats.

Since they are not staples in their diet, but only opportunistic foods that sometimes become available, they provide quick energy and carbohydrates during feeding. So, it's better to get rid of squirrels if they're damaging your routine breakfast.

1. Vegetables

Squirrels enjoy a lot of food. Vegetables are among them. Above all, they like all vegetables, but their favorite vegetable is fresh or dry corn.

Squirrels get important nutrition from vegetables and can be a good addition to their normal diet of fruits and nuts. They like to eat tomatoes, carrots, peas, and lots of other vegetables that come within sight. 

2. Mushrooms

Mushrooms and other types of fungi also form squirrels' diet consumption from the wild. They get extra nutrients such as vitamins and proteins by eating fungi.

The common reason squirrels will eat fungi is when food is in short supply or when especially tempting varieties become available. And yes, they avoid toxic ones.

3. Insects

Sometimes they eat insects as part of their vocational diet. Squirrels obtain all possible sources of protein, extra nutrients, and energy from a wide variety of insects such as beetles, caterpillars, and even ants.

Squirrels eat insects, primarily during the spring and summer seasons when insects are more abundant - and also during those times of the year when other foods are lesser in availability.

4. Plant Materials

On some occasions, squirrels also prefer some plant materials like leaves, shoots, and buds. During certain seasons or in situations where there aren't many other food sources, they might grab on these plant parts.

Squirrels may eat young seedlings and ornamental plants in gardens and landscapes, which can worry gardeners who are trying to save their plants.

5. Birdseed

Squirrels have a very great fondness for birdseed, and quite often, they invade the bird feeders in search of an easy snack. Birdseed is commonly made up of everything from nuts to seeds which gives them really a good source of nutrients.

Squirrels have a great sense of smell and may easily get to the source of food. On the other hand, access to bird seeds on a regular basis may also invite rivalry between birds.

6. Scraps and Waste

Squirrels always search for trash and waste if available. They can scrounge for food remains like fruits, vegetables, or even processed food items. Scraps and waste are not usually the first choice of food for these critters.

Nuts are amongst the favorite food for the squirrels. They can take them in shells or remove the shells and munch them. It also helps to sharpen and clean their teeth when they crack open nutshells - just like we brush ours.

Here, we have listed some of the most preferred nuts squirrels eat:

• Acorns - Squirrels are often associated with acorns – wherever there a plenty of oak trees, they’ll grab for it.
• Hazelnuts - Because this kind of nut is slightly small, the squirrels can carry it in their cheek pouches to take it to their burrow.
• Almonds – Squirrels are fast in taking off the outer coat of almonds with their teeth.
• Peanuts – Squirrels are very much fond of this nut; they are sweet and buttery in taste.
• Walnuts – Squirrels also like walnut kernels with a hard shell which is just fine because they know how to open them.
• Pine Nuts – These nuts have to be harvested from pinecones where they are usually found.
• Beech Nuts - The beech nut has a soft outer shell containing a nut that a squirrel can easily grab.
• Macadamia Nuts – These are the hardest ones to crack and for a squirrel, this will have to crack a nut for quite some time.

Squirrels are huge foodies, and because they always seem to be on the go, they need fuel and energy to keep going. But there are a few things that those squirrels avoid. Here are some of the items they generally avoid:

Toxic Plants

Instinctively the squirrel will avoid substances that are no good for them. In most instances, they would stay away from toxic plants.

They would usually avoid such plants like the castor bean plant, having extremely poisonous ricin; foxglove, which is well acclaimed for heart-affecting toxins; and oleander, containing toxic cardiac glycosides. Some other plants include lily of the valley and hemlock.

Citrus fruits

The squirrels prefer sweet fruits and nuts instead of citrus fruits. They avoid fruits that have a spicy flavor and acid taste like orange, lemon, and grapefruit.

Squirrels may occasionally snack on the citrus when very few other foods are available but generally tend to avoid the citrus in favor of a more palatable food source that better fits nutritional needs.

Spicy Food

Generally, squirrels have a sensitive approach to strong and spicy flavors for this reason they try to avoid such kind of food. Peppers are one of the scents that squirrels hate. They do not have suitable taste buds as spicy food will give a burning sensation in the mouth and affect their digestive system.

Processed Food

Processed foods are not yummy for squirrels because they often contain high levels of salt and sugar. This is because processed foods are not only not that nutritious, but they may even be harmful considering their digestive tracts so they dislike the taste.

Meat

Naturally, squirrels are herbivorous animals; therefore, they do not consume meat. As mentioned earlier in this article, fruits, vegetables, nuts, and other plant materials make up a part of their diet.

They do not typically hunt and consume larger animal sources of protein, though they can be known to consume insects from time to time. In general, their digestive system and dietary preference would be for plant-based foods. They do not consume meat often, if at all.

You can say that red and grey squirrels eat the same thing. Although there is a huge difference between them, that is their memory. Both types of squirrels will bury their food for their future. But the red ones have a weak memory and forget where they have buried it.

On the other hand, grey squirrels have a sharp memory and can remember their hiding spots. This makes it easier for the grey squirrels to steal food from the red ones.