Something will be eating them until they are 10' high. If the squirrel, and other small animals don't get them the deer will.

We have our small trees in pots on our front porch, hopefully nothing will bother them.

they will dig them out.. just to piss you off.. regardless if they actually end up eating them .. lol ... they apparently want to know what is in the bottom of the pot ... and if nothing.. will feel free to put something in it ... lol ...

ken

So in other words, I should make a cage with a roof on it so squirrels can't climb over and get in?

I HAVE had the buggers go after sprouted seeds, but rabbits eating buds and voles stripping the trunk are far more common.
Depending on your bugger levels, I would cage the whole sprout with chicken wire until it is about 2', and then replace with tree trunk guards until the trunk is gnarly enough to not be vole bait. I think someone said 10' which seems about right.

I've had squirrels dig up second-year bur oak seedlings to get at the remains of the acorn. Friend who once worked in the Mo Dept of Conservation tree nursery said the deer would come in and decimate seedling beds to get at the remains of the acorn on 1-yr stock.

Wow. Determined little b@stards!

When I start buckeye or oak in the g'houses, the chipmunks do just as Lucky says, they will rip the nut off the plant to eat the remains and leave the roots and stem laying on the top of the pot, or scattered on the g'house benches. The nuts stay attached for quite awhile, and they slowly dessicate and shrivel, so it sort of depends on the maturity of the seedling, how much damage it does. Sometimes very little, often kills it.