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How Much Do Squirrels Eat Per Day? About 1 to 1.5 Ounces

A gray squirrel eats roughly a pound of food a week — around 10% of body weight daily. The seasonal swing, and why autumn intake looks much higher.

By Zakaria 3 min read Save to Pinterest — opens Pinterest in a new tab
A gray squirrel holding a nut in both forepaws while feeding on a branch
Photo: Trek_Jason, Pixabay Content License, via Pixabay
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An adult gray squirrel eats about one to one and a half ounces a day — 30 to 45 grams, roughly 10% of its body weight. Over a week that is close to a pound of food.

The figures

speciesadult weightdaily intake
Eastern gray squirrel14–21 oz (400–600 g)1–1.5 oz (30–45 g)
Fox squirrel17–35 oz (500–1,000 g)1.5–2.5 oz
American red squirrel7–9 oz (200–250 g)0.7–1 oz
Southern flying squirrel2–3 oz (55–85 g)0.2–0.4 oz

Proportionally, smaller squirrels eat more relative to body weight — a red squirrel can be closer to 15% — because small bodies lose heat faster.

What that looks like in food

Around 30 to 45 grams a day is approximately:

  • 8–12 shelled acorns, depending on species and size
  • 25–40 sunflower seed kernels
  • 2–3 walnut halves
  • A small handful of mixed nuts, buds, fruit and fungi

In practice a wild squirrel’s day is mixed: nuts and seeds, tree buds and flowers in spring, fruit and fungi in summer, plus insects, eggs and occasional carrion opportunistically.

Why autumn looks so different

A squirrel in October appears to eat constantly. Most of that is scatter-hoarding — carrying individual nuts away and burying them one at a time across its territory.

seasonhandledeaten
Springmoderatenormal, plus heavy demand on nursing females
Summermoderatenormal
Autumnvery highsomewhat above normal
Winterlownormal, drawn from caches

Estimates of a single gray squirrel’s autumn caching run into the low thousands of nuts. A good share are never recovered, which is one of the main ways oaks and hickories get planted.

They do not hibernate

Tree squirrels stay active all winter. They put on a modest layer of autumn fat and a denser coat, but there is no long dormancy to carry them — which is why the caching is not a hobby, it is the entire winter strategy.

When intake rises for real

  • Nursing females — energy demand roughly doubles while feeding a litter
  • Cold snaps — more calories burned maintaining temperature, and more time in the drey
  • Pre-winter conditioning in late autumn, adding genuine body weight
  • Juveniles in their first autumn, growing and caching at once

If you insist on feeding them

The case against is covered in detail elsewhere on the site, and it is strong: fed squirrels concentrate in unnatural densities, approach people, cache less, and become a bite and disease risk.

If you are going to anyway:

  • Nuts in the shell, raw and unsalted — walnuts, hazelnuts, almonds, acorns
  • Hard vegetables in small amounts
  • A small, measured amount — an ounce or so per squirrel, not a dish left out
  • Never: bread, crackers, salted or roasted nuts, chocolate, cooked or processed food, cow’s milk
  • Peanuts are a poor staple. A legume rather than a nut, short on some nutrients, and prone to aflatoxin mould when damp

The amount matters because a squirrel that gets an easy ounce a day from a porch does not spend its autumn caching, and the porch is not there in February.

Common questions

How much does a squirrel eat in a day?

Roughly 1 to 1.5 ounces of food a day, or about 30 to 45 grams, which works out near 10 percent of body weight for an adult eastern gray squirrel weighing about a pound. Over a week that is close to a pound of food. In autumn the apparent intake is far higher, but most of the extra is being cached rather than eaten.

How many nuts does a squirrel eat a day?

Depending on the nut, somewhere between a handful and a couple of dozen. Around 30 to 45 grams of food a day is perhaps 8 to 12 shelled acorns, or 25 to 40 sunflower seed kernels, or two to three walnut halves. A squirrel handling far more than that is burying the surplus — a single gray squirrel may cache a few thousand nuts across an autumn.

Do squirrels eat more in autumn?

They handle vastly more food in autumn and eat only moderately more. The surge is caching — scatter-hoarding individual nuts across a territory for winter. They do also gain weight before winter, so genuine intake rises somewhat, but the difference between a September squirrel and a June squirrel is mostly in what leaves with it, not what it swallows.

What should I feed a squirrel, if anything?

The honest answer is nothing — fed squirrels concentrate, approach people, lose caching behaviour and become a bite and disease risk. If you are determined to, nuts in the shell, raw and unsalted, plus hard vegetables are the least harmful. Never feed bread, salted or roasted nuts, chocolate, or cooked food. Peanuts are a legume, low in some nutrients and prone to aflatoxin mould, so they are a poor staple.

How much do baby squirrels eat?

A hand-reared kit is fed by weight — commonly around 5 percent of body weight per feeding, several times a day, on a specialist puppy or wildlife milk replacer. Cow's milk and human infant formula cause fatal diarrhoea. Raising a wild squirrel requires a licence in most places, so a found kit should go to a licensed rehabilitator rather than be fed at home.

Do squirrels store fat for winter?

Some, but far less than true hibernators. Tree squirrels do not hibernate — they remain active all winter and rely on cached food plus a modest layer of autumn fat and a thicker coat. That is precisely why the caching matters so much: an eastern gray squirrel has no stored-fat strategy that would carry it through a food-free month.

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