Squirrel-Be-Gone Bird Feeding Tube - 8 lb

Comment: I bought this feeder a couple of years ago from Target, not Amazon, and it was fine for the fat gray squirrels where I used to live - I even had it hanging near the ground and they didn't get into it. At my new house however, two smaller red squirrels have proven the design flaws - for one thing, they hung upside down from the hanging wire by their hind feet and reached into the top slots, and after the seed level went down they chewed right through the plastic. They were also too light for the cage to fall with the weight of one squirrel. I've had trouble with rain getting inside it also, and additionally, the box at the bottom that has a few drainage holes allowed several EARWIGS to move in, which I narrowly avoided when I started to hose out the seed tube. I may just let the cat out after the squirrels next time.

Comment: We love this feeder! the birds are at this feeder non-stop! We have had this feeder up for several months (through the winter to this spring) and have never found a squirrel upon it - the black squirrels in our neighbourhood are a big issue and have complicated our bird feeding, however this has not been a concern as of yet. We do not have chipmunks in our area so we cannot speak to that. We found that the squirrels once managed to 'lift' the feeder off of its hook and drop it to the ground, however that has not happened since. The birds are able to eat from this feeder without the squirrels being all over it and eating the food before the birds can get to it. We would strongly recommend this feeder to those where squirrels are a nuisance!

Comment: would love to rate this more than 5 stars! squirrels keep trying, but they ALWAYS fail! this is truly squirrel proof! used this for quite a few years!

Comment: I have had 3 of these over the years. One was destroyed by squirrels chewing-out the plastic feeding slot. However, overall it lasted several years and the other two were still okay.

I bought my replacement at Lowes. All of the previous models had a tough, hard plastic tube from which the seed was dispensed. Think hard Nalgene bottle.

I surmised that the bean counters probably figured they could save a few cents per model and changed the tube into a thin, flimsy, plastic. It is probably roughly as thick as the disposable sun glasses handed out in optometrists offices!

Save your money. I returned mine. Another reasonably good product destroyed by corporate greed.

Comment: This feeder did work better than any other I had tried, in terms of keeping squirrels away. After a few weeks, the squirrels (who had broken several of my other feeders) got frustrated and stopped coming to my porch.

However, this feeder is almost impossible to clean. It's long and narrow, and the metal lid doesn't detach completely, so you can't get down inside to scrub it. Also, the plastic gets discolored over time, so if you're looking at the feeder from a few feet away, you can't see how much food is left inside it.

And the birds don't seem to like it very much.