How To Get Rid Of Squirrels In My Attic

How To Get Rid Of Squirrels In My Attic

It seems excessive but it’s true. Squirrels have a 25% mortality rate in the first year of their life. From being eaten by a predator, killed by another male squirrel, road accidents, disease, starvation and more. They are very delicate animals, rodents with fluffy tails. If a squirrel gets past two years old they will have learned all they need to live up to four or five more years making the average age of a surviving squirrel os about seven years in the wild, a lucky squirrel can live to 12 years old and a squirrel pet kept in captivity can live as long as two decades. Who would have thought these rodents were so long-lived. Seven years is a long time for a wild animal. What more, the female squirrel who manages to get seven years of life will have the chance to make as many as 12 litters over the years of their life. The female squirrel, on average as different species of squirrel produce different numbers of offspring, tend to produce two litters per year, once at the beginning of the summer and once at the end of the summer as fall approaches. They can have up to nine squirrel babies in one litter making them a species that can repopulate very quickly. Like mice and other rodents, they have a high number of children multiple times throughout the year and like rodents and raccoons, they prefer to reproduce in human attics. The process goes like this. A female will enter heat, this heat lasts for one single day, twice a year. Just one day. The squirrel must mate with as many squirrel males as possible on that day to ensure conception. She generally does not know who is the father and does not care. The female squirrel will find males, mate with them in the attic space where it is safe and then will shove them out of the attic violently. This repeats all day long until the squirrel is sure she will conceive. She then starts ravenously collecting food for her new children and stores it in the attic along with chewing everything to kile down her teeth and ripping up insulation to make a comfy warm nest. The babies take about a month and a week to gestate and be born. These neonates are blind and without fur which is why they need a warm nest. It will take another month for them to open their eyes for the first time. They may start leaving the nest on their own at 40 days but the mother continues to breastfeed up to 60 to 70 days from birth. Squirrels are very much like humans in that the squirrel child grows slowly and requires constant care as it is born only partially formed.

squirrel exclusionIf you think you may have a squirrel in your attic and the squirrel may be a female then you have about two weeks to get that squirrel out, after that the squirrel will be too pregnant and even a one-way door will not get the squirrel out. If the squirrel gives birth then you are in serious trouble and getting the squirrel and her babies out will require professionals that can be costly. You can get a squirrel out on your own with domestic or homemade tools like a one-way door purchased from home hardware and installed by you, on a ladder up on the roof. If you do not feel safe climbing up to the roof then call a professional. If you have experience in roofing then you have nothing to worry about, the work will take an hour or two and you will soon have that squirrel out of your attic, sans babies.

The reason locking the squirrel out works so well is that unlike house mice, squirrels do not want the food in your home. They hunt outside for food and this process means they need to leave the attic daily. If the door is put up the squirrel will refrain from leaving until she runs out of food and then its goodbye squirrel and hello attic remediation.

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