Flying squirrels

I know next to nothing about them. Only one I have seem in the wild, I took out of a ladies living room. Caught it by hand. She called me a couple of days ago to tell me she has another one. What is a good bait and trap to set in her living room to catch the other one? Thank you for any help.
Jim

Cheap way if not protected is a rat trap I make and use a fruity bait that seems to draw them in quicker than anything that I have used.

Same house? You are dealing with a colony 10-40 of them:) They like the high tight spots, check the attic for toilets. The toilets will look likes piles of mouse droppings usually very dark. You can usually scare a few up crawling around the attic also. They like to get in at the same places bat do, they will chew a bit also. Check the vent screens flyers will cut a nearly perfect circle in the screen. They are pretty much on par with bats in difficulty to deal with. I believe that fliers are a little harder to deal with because they will chew.

We need a special permit for them, but Rat traps work great, Rat traps in boxes work best for me. I use wcs squirrel past along with black sunflower seeds. Put the traps near the toilets,where they are sleeping , and where they enter or exit. It is not uncommon for the fliers to disappear for a few days after you do the attic inspection. They will come back just wait them out, they are not hard to trap out.

Jim I have three podcasts that should help you in my podcast archives.
Personally rat traps and black sunflower seeds have always worked for me.

Flying Squirrels & Bats-With David Kondrup II
http://squirrelremoval.us/podcasts/flying-squirrels-bats-with-david-kondrup-ii/

Kirk Lapierre Discusses Flying Squirrels
http://squirrelremoval.us/podcasts/kirk-lapierre-discusses-flying-squirrels/

The Secrets Of Flying Squirrel Removal 2011
http://www.blubrry.com/wildlifecontrol/1218998/the-secrets-of-flying-squirrel-removal-2011/

Jim
We do ALOT of Flyer work. Set up at the entry points of the house. Small cage traps and snap traps. Sunflower seeds and p-butter. I do about all of the work out side. If its a shingle roof the entry can be a little hard to find sometimes. Check the drip edges. They have such a small amount of body fat that they don't make it through the night in a cage trap this time of year. I been getting around 5 flyers out of houses lately. When you start getting those big numbers of flyers is during January and June. Not saying you it couldn't happen now.
If it's a metal roof there will be ALOT of exclusion work. I had a client today ask. "About how many holes you think??" I said "Oh I don't know 500ish!"

Jim, since you have so few in your area, I'm going to guess that they are protected. In Wisconsin, flying squirrels are on the protected list, which means you can't even live-trap them. ( So are woodchucks, which makes this the most violated trapping law in the world, I guess )

Flyers are the wimpiest animals I have ever seen. They have no protection from predators and any inclement weather will kill them in your trap. Despite that, I find flyers absolutely fascinating and take all of mine to a rehabber that releases them in their proper environment, I guess.

A repeating trap over the hole is recommended but the most flyers out of a single home, were caught one at a time using Rob's Squirrel Paste. The half inch by half inch squirrel cages that WCS sells seem to work the best for us, but we have had good success with the all metal three by three by ten inch rodent trap made by Tomahawk and Safeguard. Hope this helps.

I use several small cage traps like the 4x4x18" rat/chipmunk traps set back to back along several walls.I set these, then go thru the suspected hiding room looking under and around moving things around. Just like blind setting or trail setting for any other animal they will just run in all by themselves doing their wall running routine.

I dont use bait in such a senario set up as I find it isnt necessary. If they are there I usually catch them in 15 mins or so if they are in fact there in the areas of the search.If not I move room to room with the same proceedure.

Woodchucks???? Why?

We have a restriction on Northern flyers but no restriction on Southern flers.

Thank you everyone all for your help and replies.

Jim, I had flying squirrel's in my attic and caught them quite easily with a couple of Havahearts using sliced apples as bait. It took about 20 minutes to catch the first one and kept catching them almost every day for a week. Red squirrel's are another matter entirely.

Find the entrance hole. Screw a colony trap over it and collect the whole colony in the morning. Leave up for a few extra days to be sure then seal the hole.

Living room? Any chance there's a gas fireplace in there? Is there a good quality chimney cap on top of the flue? I do 2 or 3 each year that came down the uncapped flue, I'm guessing in a search for the source of that warm spot caused by the pilot light and the damper that must be blocked open slightly by fire code. Look for scratches in the soot around damper assembly, dirty footprints on light colored hearth or surrounding floor. That'll help narrow down to, or eliminate, the chimney as the entry point.

Bluebill, will they go in and out this time of year? Or do they stay inside until spring?

They will go out. I see them scatter year round from my bird feeder when I turn on the flood lights. Even in the dead of winter.

*Customers photo, first days check.

You lucky guys. Only once have I captured more than one flyer in a colony trap. I see photos posted with 1/2 dozen or more in a colony routinely, but apparently my local flyers are too shy or too smart to file into a colony one right after another. On the other hand, my local grays have no problem packing themselves into my colonies. I regularly get 3-4 juveniles at the same time, and several times had the whole darn attic full (6-7 grays) packed behind the second door of my colony traps. Getting that mid-trap flapper door opened with that many squirrels in there is always a trick with my colonies that don't have a slide off rear release door.

Kevin, just keep putting up those colony traps. One of these days there will be two dozen flyers packed in one of them. ( Don't forget to charge by the animal )

Our average catch is 7 in a colony trap.

Why trap them at all . Why not just exclude and oneway them out . There's going to be mice and bats in there most likly . Why remove them from there area as long as there out of the house there harmless . Awesome animal by the way . Love them little buggers .

I think customers like to see results,so if you catch them in a multi catch,you can still do the exclusion,show them the critters and keep them alive.I haven't had any calls for them this season yet,but then it really hasn't got cold yet.when it stays in the 20s for a while thats when I start getting calls for them.

That's interesting you get more calls after it gets cold , the animal just gets better and better . Is that the northern flyer or southern and how do you tell them apart . Would these anImals be indangered from pest control company's placing poison in attics . Reason I ask is there protected here . Trapping really isn't a option

Some wood sided cedar and T-111 type siding on homes that have historical flying squirrel inhabitation they will eventually chew back in with exclusion only methods. At least they do in my service areas. Good job security as long as the customer doesn't catch on to the squirrels routine.

These same homes get hit by woodpeckers also, so they start the ball rolling then the squirrels take advantage of an easy entry opportunity.

I just finished(well I thought I did) a flying squirrel job.At first this customer had one get in her oil burner.They of course thought it was just a baby squirrel ,they also found droppings in a closet that is the only attic type space thats accessable.So she calls a local pest control company.They come in said she had mice ,put down poison blocks and left.Three days later shes calling me .Now they have found a second "baby squirrel "in the burner and there is a harrable smell coming from a closet in a roo on the main floor.Si I show up look around in this storage space and said you have flying squirrels.No baby squirrels this time of year,the anount of droppings and how they were pilled up in areas tipped me off to that .Then we head outside .Her roof top on one side by the garage comes down to within 5 ft of the ground,i notice scratches on the corner of the house ,so Ilook undr the facier and they have this screen venting system for the in accessable attic space.Sure enough there is a quarter size hole cut through in an almost perfect circle.I said that where they are entering .I pull down a ladder and inspect the whole roof line ,I find one more hole like that in the backwhere the roof is just 6 inches from under the opening same as by garage .So I set snap traps in a void in that storage space that was hiden by insulation.Was able to look up over this wall and see that there was attic space ,just no way to get to it.After setting a half dozen rat traps ,two small live traps ,and finding two dead flyers behind the wall in the closet i tell her that getting up in that attic space would be a good idea.She agrees so I cut an opening in the master bath closet.Well I get up there and its a mess .I suggest a clean out as once I finish trapping ,and exclusion that there is a chance that more would come.She agrees again .Now going on the second week doing this by myself 6 hours a day with a couple days not going mixed in Iget to this piont .I only trap one in a snap trap .With the two that were dead in closet and two from the burner,there was just sounds of one or two left.I put up hardware cloth over all this venting of the attic.Lest the first hole open for a colony trap and removed all traps from inside . hand the bill .Won't say what I charged ,but give me some ball park figure what any of you would have charged .Keep in mind I spent two days on the attic clean out,vaccuming and disinfecting.One gets caught in the coloney trap ,Yeah they say ,job is done ,they pay me the balance ,I suggest leaving the colony trap until weekend to make sure.Now I get two calls one yesterday ,she is hearing more noise .Can I leave it up longer.I said I was planning on leaving it till you didn't hear any more noise for a while.Now today she said she was walking the dog out back and found some insulation right below the hole in back where I said they were entering .Now she wants me to come back and look to see if the chewed through some place close to that .Would one flyer in the colony trap keep others from entering ,and would they find some place else to leave? This job is killing me thought I did everything possable now I have this lady thinking that my work was not good enough.

Scott,
Is that one of your spring loaded doors or is it a gravity door like a regular muskrat door colony trap?

trapperpaw, that is one of The Multi-Catch Excluder Traps we make. Mostly I sell them now with rear transfer doors added.


Here's another shot.