Dopers - I am interested in observing squirrels in a particular area, but I need to be able to identify individual animals. I would like to find a harmless way to tag them. I first thought of paintball guns, but I think they are far too forceful and probably can’t be loaded with food coloring or other harmless marking liquids, anyway. Does anyone have a fairly easy, not too expensive idea I might try? tx
Thinking to self… Man, if I had blue squirrels living in front of my house, I’d be the coolest motherf----- on the block!
I asked my cats and they thought it was a fine idea. They request that they be notified of the time and place of the test. 
Well, if you have the time, put out some nuts and granola in front of a tray of food coloring (or harmless marking agent). Squirrel steps in it, marking itself, and then you replace the paint with a different color. More sophisticated approach is to use a tunnel sort of arrangement with brushes on the side.
Possible downside – some flock animals will attack members of the flock painted a different color. Dunno if squirrels have the same reaction, but you might be causing social problems for your squirrel friend.
Finagle, I think you might have hit upon a way to get squirrels to stage a remake of West Side Story.
Am I the only one who saw this thread title and imagined dozens of squirrels in little helmets and combat boots, running around and shooting paint pellets at each other?
hee hee - actually, when I saw it posted, that’s what I thought, too, but it was too late to change it. Of course, maybe if I do decide to mark them with paintball guns, they’ll take up arms against me, and one night, while we’re all asleep…
Catch 'em with a live trap and tag 'em however you wish…
Or try a paintball, just for fun. Never been hit by one, so I don’t know how forceful they are, so possibly take that with a large chunk of salt.
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I don’t think that I would shoot them with a paintball gun.
The paint used in them is washable. It’s made so that a laundry cycle will take the paint off. Most likely the first time it rained it would rinse right off. The animal might lick at the hit area and get the off with it’s tongue anyway. (I doubt it the paint tastes horrible)
The liquid in the paint pellet is harmless however.
Your main problem would be hitting the little rascal. Paintballs are shaped like a musket ball, which means that accuracy is not real good.
Check out this review http://www.directpaintball.com/menureviewm98.html
Even at 45 feet there is a ten-inch spread.
As for the force of the hit, it is adjustable.
The field that I play at has an indoor limit of 250 fps
The outdoors is 280.
The most common way to describe the hit is getting snapped with a towel. But it really depends on fps and distance. When playing indoors I have been hit from as little as 8ft away and that does hurt and has the potential of drawing blood. Most shots are from a lot longer distance and sting for about five or ten seconds.
Ones that bounce hurt worse then ones that break.
I’ll third or fourth the “don’t use a paintball gun” sentiment. For an average-sized squirrel, that’s a devastating amount of force. Unless, of course, you’re trying to shock-and-awe them into submission.
How about a non-toxic, non-water-soluble dye administered via a squirt gun?
I like the squirt gun idea. If you’re dead set on gunning for them, try loading up a super-soaker with nontoxic dye. You can get pretty good ranges out of those things, and accuracy is probably comparable to a paintball at a moderate velocity.
Live traps would probably be a better idea, but then you don’t get to dress up like Rambo and look like a complete psychotic when you start belly-crawling around your yard and laying little tripwires.
Don’t forget the black shoe polish.
Is Scylla still having groundhog problems? I think potassium cyanide is water-soluble…
The squirrels will eventually learn to cover themselves in cold mud so they won’t show up on your Predator-style infrared goggles.
now we’re getting somewhere. Non-toxic dye, administered via supersoaker. Love it. Now, where to find a good dye. Are we talking about something like Rit? Man, I’m going to be the hit of the neighborhood, as will my little targets.
A hit from a paintball at standard velocities- sub 300 fps- will definitely kill or maim a squirrel. Though the larger grey squirrels can withstand it better, there’s still a good amount of energy there. Don’t do it.
Second, the “paint” in a paintball is, as noted, water-soluble. It’s not “paint”, per se, but more like thickened food coloring. It’s usually a glycol base, thickened with talc or sorbitol, and colored with food-grade dyes. The shell is gelatin.
Assuming the squirrel survived the impact, rain and the animal’s grooming would remove it in a short period of time. The fill isn’t necessarily toxic to humans, but to a far smaller bodyweight squirrel, who knows? Propylene glycol is not so much “safe to eat” as it is “extremely low toxicity”. It’s not, after all, meant to be consumed, it’s just meant to not cause any harm with inadvertent exposure.
They do make special-order permanent-marking paintballs; after all, that was the original purpose to the original Nelson paintgus- to mark trees for felling or cattle for culling. The switch from oil-based to water-based paints was something of a revolution to the sport.
Perfect Circle Paintballs (run a Google) will sell UV-dye and insoluble-dye balls for riot-control and similar uses, but chances are you’ll need some documentation for them, they’re not generally available to you & me.
That reminds me; I think I’ll wear my “Protect your right to Arm Bears” t-shirt today.
Ive rolled a rabbit with a paint gun and it wasnt pretty. It was attaking my garden on a regular basis and had to be taught a lesson. It got up and ran away unharmed. I think the paint gun may harm a squirrel like like the Doc said. I like the idea of the squirt gun and the dye though. You could bait with peanut butter and sunflower seeds, they kill for that stuff.