Stop feeding your squirrels from a small, cramped, cedar feeder, like they're living in a log cabin in the mountains with no indoor plumbing! Your squirrels need to move on up, to the East side, to a deluxe apartment in the sky!

This squirrel feeder holds just over a gallon of peanuts. it's snazzy styling will wow your neighbors, and the semi-transparent windows will let you know when the feeding frenzy is about to end. There is a built in drain in the bottom, so that you can easily clean it with a water hose if you need to, since our friend the squirrel likes to mark his territory with...urine. Squirine! Fun! However, due to the addition of the drain, it's really only good for peanuts. Any smaller critter food like seeds or corn would slowly fall out of the drain (unless you cover it with something).

The feeder itself is 150x250x300mm. You'll need a decent-sized printer to make it. I used a 3mm rod for the hinge in the top. The main body of the feeder needs supports for the windows. I used 5% supports in Ideamaker, and that was plenty. I used 10% infill on the body. On a stock bowden CR-10, it would take about 50-60 hours to print. I no longer have a stock CR-10 because of this print. On a direct-drive upgraded CR-10, you're looking at closer to 35-40 hours, with speeds cranked up quite a bit.

My original plan was to print the feeder in gray filament and then paint all of the details, for a super-realistic look. After tinkering with my printer for a few weeks, I decided to just try the print with what I had on hand, which was Bblife Fast Change Rainbow filament.The result was stunning, so I kept it unpainted:

https://www.amazon.com/Rainbow-Filament-Printing-Material-Together/dp/B094PT1FMW

The windows were printed in clear PLA. In order to get the windows as transparent as possible, I printed at a slow speed with the heated bed cranked up to 110C. This allowed the layers to really settle and clear up. I super-glued the windows into place. You need to be pretty generous with the super glue, but it seems to work fine.

If you print the feeder at 50% size, you can use a paperclip as the hinge pin. At this size, it does actually function as a feeder. Think of it as the hipster, tiny home version.

Update: I originally designed and printed this in 2021. After 3 years of exposure to UV and rain in the Pacific Northwest, the silky rainbow PLA I used is still holding up. However, the colors are very muted now. I suspect that ASA might be a better choice, since it is UV resistant.

Category: Outdoor & Garden