What Foods Do Squirrels Like to Eat: Fruit, Meat, Nuts, Seeds, Vegetables, Greens

In most wildlife hospitals, squirrels in captivity are fed a diet that consists of a meal called “lab chow.”  Ours was made in-house from a specific, dry pet food and combined with a few wet ingredients. 

After the kibble absorbs the liquid, you carefully fluff it, trying to keep the nuggets whole.   This is meant to replace protein and nutrients from meats squirrels would eat in the wild.  

In addition to the lab chow,  our squirrels in rehab were offered a huge variety of fruits, greens, vegetables, seeds and nut, both native and non-native. 

It was important to not over feed any one food in particular for 2 reasons:

#1 – Nutrition – Squirrels need the right balance of calcium to phosphorus

Squirrel favorites, such as peanuts and sunflower seeds are bad choices when trying to meet this standard. 

On the other hand, spinach has the perfect balance, but…it’s really high in oxalic acid which binds to the calcium and skews the ratio. 

Over time, high or low levels of any nutrient can lead to serious health problems.  

#2 – Teach the Concept of Scarcity –  A squirrel needs to understand that once it returns to the wild, food might be scarce.  Offering a huge variety and withholding the favorites, helps the squirrel to accept less desirable food to satisfy its hunger. 

Based on the above, we made an effort to provide a variety that, in whole, was balanced.  Example: a few peanuts with a papaya chunk or collard green would generally wind up being balanced…as long as it was all eaten.

Monitoring Squirrel Eating Habits

That’s why we had to monitor and document what each squirrel ate.  And if a squirrel only ate the peanuts, we stopped giving them because we didn’t want to continue with an imbalanced diet.

That’s an example of how we balanced the nutrition.  For the most part, peanuts were considered a rare treat…more on that later.  

Favorite Foods of Squirrels – Based on Observations

The tables below represent what we observed feeding squirrels and should be used only as a reference for feeding or giving treats to wild squirrels…for fun, during the scarce food months.

When food is abundant, such as budding trees and emerging grasses, wild squirrels should be left to forage for those much needed nutrients.

The foods we fed the squirrels are broken down into the following category tables:

• • • Fruits
    • Vegetables
    • Nuts. Seeds, Legumes

Notice we never fed cheese or dairy to squirrels.

Fruits That Squirrels Eat 

Fruit is definitely part of a squirrel’s  menu.  At the wildlife hospital, squirrel caregivers were always offering an assortment of fresh and frozen fruit .  No doubt, squirrels always preferred fresh over frozen.

Below is a list of fruits and observations about whether or not squirrels ate them up, and we will code it as follows:

• • • 💓 – Favorite! (rarely went uneaten)
    • ✅ – Reliable! (sometimes went uneaten)
    • ⚠ – Picky! (often went uneaten)

These were just observations based on the squirrels being cared for at the time .  Squirrels, like humans, have individual preferences. 

FRUIT	Ground Squirrel	Tree Squirrel	Flying Squirrel
Apple	❤	❤	❤
Apricot	❤	❤	✅
Avocado Meat	❤	❤	✅
Banana	✅	✅	❤
Blackberries	❤	❤	❤
Blueberries	❤	❤	❤
Boysenberries	❤	❤	❤
Cantaloupe	❤	❤	❤
Cherries	❤	❤	❤
Coconut Meat	✅	✅	✅
Crabapples	⚠	⚠	⚠
Cranberries	⚠	⚠	⚠
Cucumber	✅	✅	✅
Currents	❤	✅	✅
Dates	✅	✅	✅
Dragon Fruit	✅	✅	✅
Elderberries	❤	❤	✅
Gooseberries	✅	✅	✅
Grapefruit	⚠	⚠	⚠
Grapes	✅	✅	✅
Guava	✅	✅	✅
Honeydew Melon	✅	✅	✅
Huckleberries	❤	❤	✅
Kiwi	❤	❤	✅
Kumquat	⚠	⚠	✅
Lemons	⚠	⚠	⚠
Limes	⚠	⚠	⚠
Mandarins	⚠	⚠	✅
Mangos	⚠	✅	✅
Marionberries	❤	❤	❤
Mulberries	❤	❤	❤
Nectarines	✅	✅	✅
Oranges	⚠	⚠	✅
Papayas	✅	✅	✅
Passion Fruit	✅	✅	✅
Peaches	✅	✅	✅
Pears	✅	✅	✅
Persimmons	✅	✅	✅
Pineapple	⚠	⚠	⚠
Plantains	⚠	⚠	✅
Plums	✅	✅	✅
Pomegranate Seeds	❤	❤	❤
Pumpkin	❤	❤	❤
Quince	⚠	⚠	⚠
Raspberries	✅	✅	✅
Strawberries	❤	❤	❤
Tangerines	⚠	⚠	✅
Tomato	✅	✅	✅
Watermelon	❤	❤	❤

Vegetable List for Squirrels

If you’re a gardener, you know squirrels like vegetables!  But you may not know why they need to take one bite of every single veggie!  

My guess is that they are simply not concerned with etiquette, and for good reason.  A squirrel in a garden has a lot to be worried about (dogs, cats, hawks, people).  Every time they stop eating in order to scan the area for predators, they lose their place.  

When the coast is clear, they just find the closest fruit or veggie and start all over. 

Well use the same icons in this table to represent how well the squirrels responded:

• • • 💓 – Favorite! (rarely went uneaten)
    • ✅ – Reliable! (sometimes went uneaten)
    • ⚠ – Picky! (often went uneaten)

 

VEGETABLES  & GREENS	Ground Squirrel	Tree Squirrel	Flying Squirrel
Alfalfa Sprouts	❤	❤	❤
Artichoke	✅	✅	✅
Arugula	❤	❤	❤
Asparagus	❤	✅	✅
Bamboo Shoots	✅	✅	✅
Bean Sprouts	✅	✅	✅
Beans – Green	✅	❤	✅
Beans – Wax	❤	❤	✅
Beans – Fava	✅	✅	✅
Beets	⚠	⚠	⚠
Bok Choy	❤	❤	❤
Broccoli	❤	❤	❤
Brussel Sprouts	❤	❤	❤
Cabbage – Green	✅	✅	✅
Cabbage – Red	✅	✅	✅
Carrots	✅	✅	✅
Cauliflower	❤	❤	❤
Celery	⚠	⚠	⚠
Celery Leaves	❤	❤	❤
Celery Root	❤	❤	✅
Collard Green raw	❤	❤	❤
Corn (Dry)*info	✅	✅	✅
Cucumber	⚠	⚠	✅
Dandelion Greens	❤	❤	❤
Eggplant	⚠	⚠	⚠
Endive	❤	❤	❤
Escarole	✅	✅	✅
Fennel	⚠	⚠	⚠
Green Onion Tips	⚠	⚠	⚠
Horseradish Root	✅	✅	⚠
Jicama	✅	✅	✅
Kale	❤	❤	❤
Kohlrabi	❤	❤	❤
Leeks Young	⚠	⚠	⚠
Lettuce – Iceberg	❤	✅	✅
Lettuce – Leafy	❤	❤	❤
Lettuce – Romaine	❤	❤	❤
Mushrooms	❤	✅	❤
Mustard Greens	❤	❤	❤
Parsnip	✅	✅	✅
Peas	❤	❤	❤
Pepper – Bell	⚠	⚠	⚠
Pepper – Sweet	⚠	⚠	⚠
Pumpkin	❤	❤	❤
Radish	✅	✅	⚠
Rutabaga	✅	✅	✅
Squash – Acorn	❤	❤	✅
Squash – Butternut	✅	✅	✅
Squash – Yellow	❤	❤	❤
Squash – Zucchini	✅	✅	✅
Spinach	❤	❤	❤
Radicchio	❤	❤	❤
Sweet Potato	✅	✅	✅
Swiss Chard	❤	❤	❤
Tomato	❤	❤	❤
Turnip	✅	✅	⚠
Watercress	❤	❤	❤

The Nuts & Seeds Squirrels Love to Eat

This table should come as no surprise.  Squirrels simply love just about every single nut or seed offered.  But they definitely had individual preferences.  For fun, we would purposely mix up the nuts and watch for them to choose a favorite. 

Some squirrels stepped over walnuts to grab an almond and vice-versa.  

NUTS & SEEDS	Ground Squirrel	Tree Squirrel	Flying Squirrel
Almonds	❤	❤	❤
Brazil Nuts	❤	❤	❤
Chestnuts	❤	❤	❤
Hazelnuts	❤	❤	❤
Macadamia	❤	❤	❤
Peanuts	❤	❤	❤
Pecans	❤	❤	❤
Pine Nuts	❤	❤	❤
Pistachio	❤	❤	❤
Pumpkin Seeds	✅	✅	✅
Sesame Seeds	❤	❤	❤
Sunflower Seeds	❤	❤	❤
Walnuts	❤	❤	❤

Nutritionally speaking, sesame seeds are the only ones that meet the calcium/phosphorus ratio and they were offered generously. 

Almonds, Acorns, Macadamia and Walnuts are among the best squirrel nuts and given in small amounts.  While the rest were a very rare treat for healthy squirrels only.

Many times we would smear an apple piece with almond butter (never peanut butter) and dip it into sesame seeds for a special treat.

And finally, that leads us to Meats…

Meats we Fed the Squirrels

Yes, squirrels definitely eat meat.  

Sometimes, especially in adult squirrels, we couldn’t get the squirrels to eat the lab chow.  When that happened, we offered these picky eaters mealworms and hard boiled eggs (sourced locally).  The squirrels gobbled them up.   

We also observed squirrels eating dead flies, butterflies and beetles that had made their way into the cages.   

• Flies
• Dragonflies
• Beetles
• Crickets
• Grasshoppers
• Eggs
• Spider Eggs
• Grubs
• Larva
• Moths

For further reading on meats, and some videos, check out this post – more on squirrels eating meat

Keep in mind, our goal was to provide a balanced diet to injured squirrels.  Feeding squirrels large amounts of the wrong foods can end up doing more harm than good.  

But it sure is fun to treat the precious animals to an occasional snack.  

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