hoards of turkeys.

Turkeys and squirrels would make short work of seed, leaving none for the small birds.

Nearly everyone who feeds wild birds sees squirrels gobbling up expensive seed. Elaborate and expensive feeders help birds eat while excluding squirrels.  We use a different method.

Plenty of squirrels make Winding Pathways home. So do wild turkeys. We enjoy watching them and don’t mind giving them some seed. Unfortunately, they come in droves and wolf down all the seeds.    Each morning we sprinkle some seeds on the lawn for both turkeys and squirrels but we needed to keep them away from a feeder favored by cardinals, chickadees titmice, and other birds.

Squirrel and Turkey Excluder

This homemade excluder seems to stop squirrels and turkeys while allowing in songbirds.

We built a simple but effective squirrel and turkey excluder out of scrap lumber.  It’s merely a rectangular box two feet wide and four feet long. The frame is made of 2×2 lumber, the top is of treated ½ inch plywood, and the sides are of 2×2 inch mesh heavy wire. There is no bottom.

We placed a feeder on a homemade picnic table and put the turkey and squirrel excluder over it. One end of the excluder is hinged to the table, making it easy to lift the other side to fill the feeder.

So far squirrels and turkeys have not been able to infiltrate the excluder and stay outside enjoying the cracked corn we’ve spread specially for them.