I love gardening and I love feeding the birds. I don’t mind sharing with the squirrels, but the squirrels don’t want to share with the birds.
Being in need of a new bird feeder this year, I picked up an inexpensive two-part plastic feeder that was held together with a piece of cording. It wasn’t in my garden two hours before a squirrel had chewed through the cord and dumped the whole thing on the ground.
Being forever optimistic, I threaded a new cord through the feeder, reloaded, and had the whole thing happen again. Well, I just couldn’t have that.
Fast forward a few days, and you find me in the local DIY shop, considering my crafty options to keep the squirrels from hogging (squirreling!) all the seed.
Here’s what I did…
You’ll need:
- 2 bolt-on d-rings (also used for hanging mirrors)
- a threaded rod long enough to go through your bird feeder (the one I bought was 12″)
- 2 wing-nuts (the same diameter as the threaded rod)
- 3 hex nuts (also same diamter)
- a piece of chain (I used some I had left from another project)
- pliers
- squirrel compromised bird feeder
bolt on D-Rings
Connect in this order on the threaded rod:
- hex nut
- 2 d-rings
- hex nut
- wing nut (with flat side away from d-rings)
- feeder lid
- feeder body
- wing nut (with flat side facing feeder body)
After the rod is threaded, open the end link on the chain with the pliers and attach to the d-rings. I used two with them facing each other so the feeder will hang balanced.
wing nut on the bottom
view through the feeder
With the wing nuts still loose, fill the feeder.
Tighten top wing nut while holding on to the bottom one so it doesn’t come unthreaded.
Hang in the garden!
It’s been several weeks now and the birds continue to enjoy their food with occasional visits from squirrels, who have been totally stymied by the new set up. Like I said before, I don’t mind sharing the the furry beasts, but they can’t have ALL the food!
Remember, if you make any pattern or craft from sewhooked, I’d love to see a photo. Email me or add it to the Friends of sewhooked flickr group.
Happy crafting
