Believe it or not, squirrels are more common pests than you might think. While they may be cute to watch while they run around your yard, there comes a time when they must go. Squirrels can make a mess anywhere in the yard, especially when their droppings are involved. It’s important for every homeowner to know how to identify these droppings so that you don’t have any surprises when it comes time to have your property sprayed.
Identifying Squirrel Droppings
Squirrel droppings have a uniform shape that is easily identifiable by anyone who sees them. The shape of squirrel droppings varies from one species to another, but all squirrel droppings have the same basic shape. Squirrels have two main types of droppings: scat and pellets.
Scat is the name given to any type of feces produced by squirrels or other animals. Scat is usually found near feeding areas or nests where there is an abundance of food; however, some squirrel species do not produce scat when they live in urban areas where there are plenty of food sources available to them at all times of the year. Pellets are formed when seeds or nuts pass through an animal’s digestive tract and become compacted into a hard ball-shaped mass that looks like small bird eggs.
Notice the Size
Squirrel droppings are typically about 1/2-inch long, 3/8-inch wide, and 3/8-inch thick. They look like tiny versions of rabbit poop, but they’re usually darker in color. The size and shape of squirrel droppings depend on the species of squirrel you’ve got in your yard. The gray squirrel has larger poops than the red squirrel or groundhog. Red squirrels tend to leave more seeds in their droppings than gray squirrels do.
Take a Good Look at Their Color and Texture
Squirrel droppings are usually black or brown in color because they contain seeds from the food that they eat. Rat and mice feces tend to be white or grayish-white in color because they do not consume seeds as often as squirrels do. The consistency of rodent feces is also different from that of squirrels; rodents produce softer pellets than squirrels do because they consume more plant matter in addition to seeds and nuts.
It’s that time of year again, and squirrels are working overtime on your property, gathering food to fill the bellies of their babies who will be born in the spring. Squirrels like to hide in the trees and watch, so all you’ll see is a tippy-tippy tap on the twigs until they drop their nuts or seeds, or maybe some sunflower seeds. That’s when it’s easy to spot squirrel feces. They’re much smaller than mouse droppings which are slightly larger and shaped like ovals or ellipses instead of spheres.