I picked this one off of the top rail of the pipe fence. The half grown kitten seemed to enjoy it and maybe it learned a little about what it is supposed to be eating
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Oh, I was about to say - What a Cat!
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Maybe when she gets a little bigger
Not much bigger than the squirrel now
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Just one guy, but i dispose of them in white wine, garlic, tomatoesā¦
Honestly my issues with squirrel as dinner are that they are smaller than rabbits and that the hair is remarkably persistent. That said slowly simmered a couple hrs in almost any fricasse or cacciatore-type recipe, they are by flavor WAY better than rabbit. Way way betterā¦
And to the up-thread poster: i also shoot them; my patience is kinda finite to wait for them to die of old age, and there is a dearth of apex predators hereā¦
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tough cat! those grays are pretty big. mine tried to catch a mallard duck last spring in my yard. she hung on thru the air for about 20ft. before falling of into the water in the ditch! i laughed about that all day!
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The cat had some help from a 22
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Can a gray squirrel get through a 1.5 inch opening?
Thanks @jerry! Would you agree thatās a fairly fat squirrel? Am adjusting distance from hot wire to fence so squirrel has to make contact with both but not so close the hot wire arcs over to fence and shorts outā¦ Looks like 2 inch gap would work for fat squirrels, maybe a bit less for skinny squirrel? @JustAnne4 any ideas on this?
I agree a fairly fat squirrel .
Hmmmm. Nice systematic experiment. Nicely done too.
So the concept of a hot wire is to deliver a memorable shock. If the table on which the jar is placed were grounded and the jar lid through which the squirrel passes were hot, that squirrel would have gotten shocked even with the largest opening ā¦and certainly if he tried to increase the aperture by chewing. 
Or, perhaps more like the fence, if the top part of the circumference of lid were hot and the bottom part were grounded (with an insulator between them), Iām pretty confident every encounter would have resulted in a shock. Iām no squirrel whisperer, but that pain of the shock is a huge deterrent to trying again.
So it doesnāt matter how fat/skinny the squirrel, itās the paws and nose that unsuspectingly touch the hot wire before the bulk of the body gets through.
My 2 cents.
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@justanne. If I have a gap of three inches or more between fence (grounded) and hot wire, I know a squirrel can climb up the fence and never touch the hot wire, unless he waves his tail around. So what is the magic distance between fence and hot wire so gray squirrel must touch the hot as it climbs up fence? 1.5 inches? 2 inches? If the hot is too close to the fence it may arc and short out but I donāt know what that distance is.
Conibear 110ās are what I use. Ordered a box of 6 several years ago. Very effective. I like to keep several baited and set during fruiting season.
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Do you have any issues with birds stealing your bait?
I live in suburbia so capture and drown is the best method.
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I havenāt had a problem with birds stealing the bait. I think they are too busy stealing my cherries.
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Dunno. I think the best data for your setup will come from a game camera.
That is dependent on your setup but the way to get an idea is to take a stiff piece of wet grass and lay it on the grounded line. Then while keeping that touching the ground bring a part of the grass closer to the hot wire until you hear a zzsst. Think of a violin bow where you are touching one string and now you are going to touch another. The zzsst distance is the arc distance for your setup.
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Thanks! The fence guy just told me that when wet the hot wire can arc up to one inch to any nearby ground. I think I will use 1.5 inches as the needed distance between hot wire and grounded fence. Squirrel canāt squeeze through that gap without touching both hot and ground. This is really hard to target squirrels with electric fence but Iām going to keep tweaking.
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Boy this has been a TERRIBLE squirrel / red chipmunk year. They pretty much gutted my plum tree and are setting their sets on the limited number of peaches and pluots I have. UGH! My tube traps are working overtime but they donāt appear to be making much of a dent in the total population. Anyone else seeing larger numbers of these 4 legged nuisances this year?