Red Squirrels in Your Garden

You can feed red squirrels in your garden without a licence, and the best foods are hazelnuts in their shells, beech nuts, sweet chestnuts and pine nuts, in small amounts, rather than peanuts or bird seed mixes. What matters more is what you leave alone, which is any drey, and what you do if a grey squirrel turns up: grey squirrels carry squirrelpox, a virus that is harmless to them and usually fatal to reds within two weeks, and a shared feeder can pass it on.

Is it a red squirrel?

Colour alone will not settle it. Red squirrels are not always bright rusty red: some are pale brown, grey or almost black, and their tails often go quite blond in summer. The reliable marker is the ear tufts, because unlike grey squirrels, reds always have distinctive hairy tufts on their ears. Reds are also smaller and daintier than greys. A body about as long as an adult's hand, with a tail the same length again, is typical. Dreys, the squirrels' nests, are large untidy structures high in the trees. Pinecones chewed like apple cores on the ground are another sign.

Location helps. Most of Britain's red squirrels live in Scotland, though there are fewer than 150,000 in Scotland. The pine forests of the Highlands and Dumfries and Galloway are the best places to see them (Forestry and Land Scotland). In Central Belt towns and cities a squirrel is more likely to be a grey, because the reds are concentrated in the Highlands and the south-west. A photograph is the best way to settle a doubt, since the ear tufts show up even at a distance.

What the law says

Red squirrels and their dreys are protected under Schedules 5 and 6 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. In Scotland, section 9 makes it an offence to intentionally kill, injure or take a red squirrel, to possess a live or dead one or anything derived from it, or to sell or advertise one. It is also an offence to intentionally or recklessly damage or destroy a place a red squirrel uses for shelter, obstruct access to it, or disturb the squirrel while it is in it. Schedule 6 restricts the methods that can be used to kill or take protected animals.

Feeding is not among the offences. What you must leave alone is any drey in a garden tree or hedge: do not move it, avoid pruning around it while it is in use, and do not disturb whatever is in it. If you are planning tree work and suspect a drey is active, stop and check first.

What to feed

Feed a variety of foods similar to what a squirrel meets in the wild. Hazelnuts in their shells, beech nuts, sweet chestnuts and pine nuts are excellent because they most closely mimic the natural food a red squirrel would come across. Apples and carrots also provide calcium, but avoid sweet dried foods such as raisins and sultanas, which can cause calcium deficiency.

Peanuts are not recommended. Red squirrels will eat them, but studies have shown that a diet made up mostly of peanuts can lead to calcium deficiency and weakening jaws, so either leave them out or make sure there is a variety of other foods available. Avoid seed mixes designed for birds, including sunflower seeds, because they do not give squirrels all the nutrients they need. A cuttlefish bone or antler placed near the feeder is an alternative calcium source, especially valuable in summer for juveniles and females.

Where and how often

Use a squirrel feeder box with a flip-top lid, which you can buy or build, and fill it no more than one third full so there is no leftover food to go mouldy. Place food as high as possible, because cats account for a high number of fatalities in gardens that squirrels visit. A good spot is against a wall or tree, so the squirrel does not cross open ground and can escape easily, in a sheltered area under tree cover that also protects against birds of prey. If you live on or near a busy road, consider whether your feeders encourage squirrels to cross it. You may help more by not feeding at all.

Feed small amounts every three or four days, so squirrels do not become dependent and stop looking elsewhere. The RSPB advises no peanuts or seeds for birds between 1 May and 31 October, and Saving Scotland's Red Squirrels supports that, so use only flip-top feeders, which limit access by birds, if you put food out for squirrels in that period. The critical period is summer, before nuts, fruits and conifer seeds ripen and natural food is short. In autumn squirrels may stop visiting while there is plenty of wild food, and they will probably return in winter, when continued feeding gives them a boost.

Keep feeders clean: scrub them regularly with detergent (the RSPB recommends cleaning bird feeders once a week), change leftover food before it goes mouldy, spray with a pet-safe or bird-safe disinfectant before refilling, and scrape old or mouldy food into a bin, because mouldy food can bring on adenovirus. Do not hand-feed squirrels, because of the risk of spreading diseases and parasites. In an area with a high risk of squirrelpox, use an anti-viral disinfectant such as Virkon S, since ordinary and anti-bacterial detergents do not stop the virus. Follow the safety instructions on the pack.

Squirrelpox

Squirrelpox is carried by grey squirrels without harm to them, and in red squirrels it is usually fatal within two weeks. Symptoms are weeping lesions around the eyes, nose, mouth, ears, feet and genitalia, and sick animals are lethargic and unable to feed properly. An outbreak can wipe out a local red squirrel population within weeks. Feeders increase the risk because they can bring the two species into closer contact.

The virus has been confirmed in southern Scotland near Lockerbie, Gatehouse of Fleet, Sanquhar, Moffat, Langholm and the Tweed Valley, and on 6 July 2026 in a red squirrel at Dollar, Clackmannanshire, only the second time it has been detected north of the central belt after Dunfermline in April 2024. If you are in an area with a confirmed case, take feeders down for at least two weeks, and report sick or dead squirrels, with photographs if possible, to Saving Scotland's Red Squirrels. Do not approach a sick squirrel.

If grey squirrels start visiting your garden, do not feed them, and report the sighting at scottishsquirrels.org.uk. You may need to stop feeding wildlife altogether. If you see reds and greys at the same feeder, stop feeding and report it. For keeping greys off bird feeders, see grey squirrel-proofing bird feeders.

Planting instead

Planting does the same job for years without the contact risk of a shared feeder. Red squirrels love seeds from pine, spruce and larch cones, and a single squirrel can eat the seeds of up to 20,000 cones in a year. In the wild they also take hazelnuts, beech mast, fungi, shoots and fruit. Trees take years to produce, so treat planting as a long-term project alongside feeding, not a replacement for this year.

Common questions

Sources