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Can Poison Be Used to Kill Squirrels

To describe a squirrel you would use three main words – agile, stubborn and incredibly persistent. If they like your home, and let’s face it; why wouldn’t they, you might have difficulty getting rid of the pesky bastards. So you may thing that poison is a good idea to kill the squirrels to solve the problem.

Think of it this way – your home provides a safe place for you to raise your young, give you warm shelter when it’s cold outside, contains food, and protects you from the rain. These are exactly the things that a squirrel will be looking for when they are trying to raise a family or just survive against predators. They will nibble and bite their way through pretty much any material that you put in front of them – if they want in, they are getting in! This is exactly what makes squirrel prevention so difficult for those that don’t really know what they are doing.

How To Kill A Squirrel
In their natural habitats squirrels can be particularly beautiful creatures that will demonstrate their exceptional climbing ability by scampering up tree trunks and dancing through the top branches of the trees. However, when these animals make their way into an urban setting they can really become a massive problem, and the instinct of some people will be to try and kill these animals. It is fair to say that these animals can cause a reasonable amount of damage if they get into the loft of a domestic home, but they can also be particularly difficult to kill.

Lethal Traps For Squirrels
These small animals do not spend a lot of time on the ground, rather they are always climbing where possible, so setting traditional traps to kill squirrels aren’t particularly successful. These traps will usually be large snap traps or body grip traps that will both crush the animal, and will need to be carefully positioned and well baited to be successful. One of the problems for people using this method is that the traps can have varying degrees of success, and the squirrels are also quite light on their feet and won’t always trigger the trap.



Poison
One of the commonest methods for killing pest animals such as squirrels is to use poison, but there are a number of issues with using this method to kill squirrels. Laying poison in one place may seem like a good idea, but squirrels do not stay still and will often have moved to another concealed area where they will die, leaving the problem of a carcass, and a terrible odor inside your house. Poisoning is also a cruel method of killing squirrels, as they will usually suffer a painful and drawn out death as the poison kills the animal. But the main problem is that squirrels very rarely eat rat poison or any other kind of poison (there is no registered or marketed poison for squirrels). So can you kill squirrels with rat poison? Very rarely, and this never actually solves the squirrel problem, since there are usually several others.

Shooting
For people living in the country who are expert marksmen, shooting squirrels is possible, but these small animals are very mobile and rarely stay still, meaning they are a difficult target to kill with one shot. Injuring a squirrel in this way is undesirable, as they will often leave trails of blood as they flee to a safe place, and they are known to carry blood borne diseases.

Carcasses
One of the biggest problems when killing a squirrel is dealing with the carcass, and although some people will put them in the trash, the odor can often attract more pest animals into the area. Burial or burning are both unpleasant options, and many states also have regulations about the disposal and treatment of the carcass of a wild animal.

Alternatives To Killing A Squirrel
There are many misconceptions that people have about squirrels, with names such as ‘tree-rats’ really being undeserved. These animals are an important part of the ecosystem, and even when they get into urban areas there are often better solutions to the pest rather than killing.

Many people will find that the main problems they have with squirrels will be that they can find a way into the attic space, so taking measures to exclude these squirrels from the attic can often be a better solution. Sealing all of the entrance and exit points into the attic isn’t too difficult, and the removal of the squirrels is also straightforward, but there are also professionals that can look after the situation.

Another option for those who have an issue with having squirrels in their garden rather than in their property is to trap and remove the squirrel. This is by far the best method, much better than poisoning or killing. Read my How to Trap a Squirrel guide for more info. Live trapping tends to be a better solution than lethal traps as it means any animal caught accidentally can be removed alive, and removing the animal also means that you will not have to deal with the carcass.

PHOTOS: For great pictures of squirrel trapping and removal, click on my: Squirrel Photographs gallery.



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Here is a complete list of my squirrel control pages:
Baby Squirrels in the Wall
Squirrel in the Chimney
How to Get Squirrels Out of Your Attic
How to Get Rid of Squirrels in the Attic
Squirrels Chew on Your Home
Squirrel Control
How to Get a Squirrel Out of the Wall
How to Get Rid of Squirrels
How to Keep Squirrels Away from House
How to Catch a Squirrel

Tricks For Killing Squirrels In Attic - The attic of a home is usually a great hiding place for squirrels. It often is the place where they come in from and there is very little human traffic, which makes the squirrel feel safe. You may have tried to use a non-lethal squirrel trap, but the squirrel simply keeps coming back. In those cases your only other choice could be killing squirrels in attic. That may seem like a cruel thing to do, but if the squirrel is damaging your insulation, wiring or walls in your home then you may have no other choice. Killing squirrels in attic should be done as humanely as possible, so you should look for a couple of things in a lethal trap. The first one is that the trigger mechanism will kill fast so that the animal does not suffer, and the second thing to look for is a trap that will keep the dead squirrel out of sight. You may be tempted to use poison, but resist the urge. Sometimes the poison is not fast acting and will give time for the squirrel to hide in your walls and die there which can leave a horrible smell in your house for up to a week.

If you can't kill the squirrel or believe me that it's not the best way to solve the problem, you can try prevention too
There are plenty of ways that you can try to prevent squirrels from making a home in your house or garden, and you will find a lot of information over the internet. The only problem with some of these methods is that they are very much down to basic common sense. If you put cat food or milk in a bowl on your front porch, you are basically sending out a great big neon light to the squirrel that says “Please live here!” If you don’t want to send off this signal, don’t put the food outside. Also, make sure that bird feeders are on the very outskirts of your yard. On top of this, make sure that there are no holes in your home that any rodents could get in through.

If you are looking for something a little quicker and easier to get rid of your squirrels, or prevent them from making an appearance in your home, there are a lot of manmade devices and creations that you can turn to. One of these is a small device that gives out a very high pitched noise that humans can’t hear, but rodents can and simply detest. The only problem with this is that they will soon get used to the noise and come back with a vengeance. The same applies with moth balls – they will hate the smell at first, but eventually will become used to it and be able to overcome the scent. These things can be fairly expensive in the long term, especially when they will actually only work for a little while, so think twice before you turn to these.

Of course, there are a lot of sprays on the market that promise to prevent squirrels from entering your home. The only trouble with these is that they don’t work, and if they do, (which is a very slight chance) you will end up harming the animal with the ingredients found in the sprays themselves. The whole point of preventing the squirrel from entering your home is to be human and so that you don’t have to resort to traps and other methods – what’s the point if you are going to hurt the animal anyway?

One of the tried and tested methods for squirrel prevention is to speak with a professional. They will already have done the testing stuff of moth balls, sprays, noise devices etc. They will save you a lot of money and a lot of effort by telling you the things that actually work, rather than giving you a whole bunch of mumbo-jumbo of things that “might” work!



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