Squirrels are determined animals who will stop at nothing if there is a food source available and just to let you know even if you bought the narrower mesh guardian cage which we used to have, they can still gain access believe it or not ! If you have rats around you may need to remove all food sources and any any fallen foods for two or three weeks to hopefully move them on or you may find your neighbours might start complaining if they see vermin around.

I’d worry about the squirrel getting stuck in the cage as (s)he puts on weight. Could be nasty for him/her.

I have the small-mesh version of the ground feeder guardian. Never seen a squirrel get in. We don’t see many birds in there either, sadly.

a squirrel managed to get into my small-mesh one but scooping out a hole in the lawn underneath it, like he was tunnelling under the fences in The Great Escape

The only fool proof method to keep a squirrel from the food was by using a free standing feeder pole placed at least two and half meters away from nearest launchpad (tree, fence, wall etc,) and fix a baffle dome as high up as possible on the free standing pole. In 8 years of using this method not one squirrel managed to get to the feeders although they'll chew the baffle screw to half its size ! I was very surprised the younger, slightly smaller squirrels could get into the narrow mesh guardian (they did not access the pitched roof version with adjustable mesh gauge ) as it looks impossible when you see how close the mesh is and ours did not have to dig underneath but climbed through the mesh. On occasion they got stuck without injuring themselves and we did have to let them out again, Squirrels are so fixated on food sources we found one at the bottom of our emptied green garden bin as we'd propped the lid open with a small pruned twiggy oak branch to dry/air the bin out and it had climbed the brick house wall (which they can also do to a limited height ! ) to get to the top of the bin and then attempted to climb on the off-cut narrow branch and both fell in. Had to wheel the bin back to the grass, lower it down gently to allow the squirrel to escape. If you get grey squirrels in your garden you'll never be short of entertainment - or should that be frustration ? !!

They are very determined little creatures, see the news link below

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-humber-59770360

Plus, two videos captured on my trailcams:

A grey squirrel leaps from the right onto the feeding station!

Precision leaping!

The playhouse has been removed in the interests of squirrel safety.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/peak-rambler/51669794212/in/album-72157720097617293/

A grey squirrel leaps from the old playhouse (right) onto the feeding station (left)

https://www.flickr.com/photos/peak-rambler/51670833138/in/album-72157720097617293/

Love the videos! I saw the report of the squirrel having to be rescued from a feeder because he ate too much.  For the moment I've given up using the new cage or putting out food on the table in the hope that the rats will move away! Fingers crossed.

Keep us posted Sandra, things can return to some normality.

When I had rats, we removed all food for 3 weeks and monitored the situation, to date, nothing observed since.

Good news. Thanks, Mike.