Using Squirrels to Harvest Nuts

Here is a research paper that should help with your squirrel labor force
What is interesting is that squirrels can determine which nuts have potential for longer strorage and those are the ones that go into a cache.
Other nuts are just eaten. So a squirrel cache is likely to have the best nuts for seedlings!


Mechanisms of chache decision making in fox squirrels
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~prestos/Downloads/PrestonJacobs2009.pdf

This video has an idea I am going to try. Placing concrete blocks such that the hollow middles make attractive areas to naturally cache for the squirrels .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8vs5Et9c2s

Anonymous wrote:I did not know that most of the nuts squirrels collect are actually misplaced, and not actually consumed, why is that?
I have never had squirrel to eat, is it good?

By digging to save their nuts, the squirrels actually 'plant' them where they will spend the winter in a moist and cold environment, which stratify the nuts and prepare them to germinate. The trick with the nail keg its to have them actually use the kegs. Not sure how that would work but hey, I'm willing to learn. American hazelnuts are plentiful here and they seem to look at me giving the nuts the once over. That very night, they harvest all of them minus those that are wormy.
So yes, if you can find a suitable vessel that they would use to hide their nuts, it would be worthwhile. Not just because they harvest them all in one day but because they also sort them out! It would help to find such a cache and study the shape and size, then duplicate it in wood. Although they have hidden nuts in the plastic pails I stored in the garage, in the exhaust pipes of our motorcycles, so they may be less picky than we think, and they do look for dryer spots, so perhaps the nail keg idea is not so silly after all.

As far as eating them, the larger, grey squirrel is best. The red one is usually skinnier and tough as a coot. Still, they are a lot smaller than rabbits. Tasty though. Once they are dressed and skin is off, you need to do everything you can to tenderize them: They have very little fat, so yes, they may be tough. Cook them in wine, slow cook them, cook them in buttermilk, brine them... whatever you can to make them tender.

Since this is an older post, I’m curious if anyone has had any success with this concept? Anyone attempt this?

Larry Fletcher wrote:Since this is an older post, I’m curious if anyone has had any success with this concept? Anyone attempt this?

I did post enthusiastically on the topic and I only have the wild hazelnuts [that do not grow very big & tend to be wormy]. But I'm still thinking about it. I have a bit of lumber and this summer, if I have enough time, I'm ready to make several boxes that I would place near wild hazelnut bushes. I would make them like cubes [about 1'X1'X1']with one face having a 3" hole and place them under boughs/ wood piles. They've been creative in their nut hiding: a number of cavities in my garage received a few nuts, but those were not very good. If only I could grow *good* nuts, I would put more effort into the venture.
Perhaps if we show them where we want them... who knows? We would have a much better chance IMHO if I could grow filberts [but in zone 4b, soon to be 5 it is unlikely to happen soon]. If they do take us up on it, we should not be greedy so they survive and maybe do better the next year. Grey squirrels would probably harvest more as they need more. Red squirrels, I hesitate to invite as they are also a lot more destructive: they will chew through stuff.
I have a couple of walnut trees and chestnuts, but much too young to produce yet. they are just hanging in there, not in a hurry to grow big, so...

In Paradise Lot by Eric Toensmeier on page 180 (page before ch 28) he talks about a guy that leaves out buckets of sawdust and the squirrels fill with hazelnuts. He then collects and leaves corn for them as a trade.

Welcome to permies J Wicker.
I think we're going to have a good year for hazelnuts locally this year, but I don't have squirrels here to pick them for me. The birds and mice do plant them around, but not in big caches. They do usually get to the good ones first, but I'm keeping an eye out - they'll soon be ripe enough!

Nancy Reading wrote:Welcome to permies J Wicker.
I think we're going to have a good year for hazelnuts locally this year, but I don't have squirrels here to pick them for me. The birds and mice do plant them around, but not in big caches. They do usually get to the good ones first, but I'm keeping an eye out - they'll soon be ripe enough!

I had commented on this thread before but never made the boxes. The main trouble with squirrels is that they will plant them in caches that you don't think about, like the exhaust pipe of our motorcycles or inside the mower, where they cut a few wires to hide them more conveniently.
I'm still trying to think of a place that would be as attractive to them as convenient to me. It has to be completely water and snow proof, have a hole that will allow them to squeeze in but not much more and be a place you would never think of...
still thinking. At this hour [9/9/25] they have harvested the hazelnuts I was looking at 2 days ago. I suspect they saw me looking at them...