Ontario Chipmunk living in my backyard – Loves Peanuts
June 2015 Update: He’s back from his winter sleep and living in under my rock garden and waterfall!
This little guy showed up in early November on my patio porch looking for food
to fill up his burrow
We have had chipmunks in our backyard for several years now.
There always seem to be at least one or two chipmunks around the garden, and they do become quite tame.
Our backyard has a small pond, several Maple trees and a few bird feeders and chipmunks are attracted to the sunflower seeds and peanuts that may drop to the ground.
Before I installed a squirrel baffle on my feeders they were quite eager to even climb the pole, sit inside the feeders and fill up.
Chipmunks can easily get used to hand feeding if you wish.
You can even get them to respond to signals and sounds. My kids got a kick of imitating the chipmunk chirp when they were tossing them nuts. The chipmunks started to look around and come when they heard the sound, knowing they would receive a nutty treat. It’s really cute.
Our chipmunks even became tame enough to climb our legs and sit on the palm of our hands to pick up a nut.
Along the way, we stopped hand feeding them though.
I thought it would be in their best interest to be more cautious. Being afraid will keep them one step ahead of cats and predators and maybe people who are not that fond of the small rodents.
I have never had any problems with chipmunks causing damage to my garden. You may see the odd very small hole in the lawn that connects to one of their burrows. They have never damaged any of my shrubs, flower gardens or trees. At one time, we even had as many as a families of five chipmunks living in our yard.
They were a cute sight, chasing each other around the yard while hunting for maple keys.