For others looking for help, my lights were chewed by squirrels in several places. Here's what I drew to diagnose and reattach "cut" wires together. Note that there were the following number of wires between bulbs 2,3,4,3,3,....3,3,4,3,2,3,4,3,3,...,3,3,4,4,2 where ... is many bulbs with 3 wires between them. Thought I'd share some knowledge so others don't have to wade through the wire tracing to reverse engineer proper connections.

 

Welcome to AAC

I don't have squirrel problems. But if I did - I'd replace the damaged lights. Patchwork can cause hot spots that can lead to possible fire. Unless you want the most spectacular and exciting display on the block - I'd recommend just getting new lights. They're not as expensive as replacing your house.

 

Usually strings like that consist of groups of lights in series, each series set connected in parallel.So it it is not totally obvious which wires go where, my suggestion is to save the bulbs as spares for the replacement string of lights. My reasoning is that it will be tedious to trace out the connections .
BUT it would be possible to repair. Understand that the typical arrangement is for both the hot side and the neutral side extend thru most of the string. BUT really you will need to rebuild the whole string, depending o how many damaged sections there are. BUT, if this is a more complex bulb string, with some flashing patterns, my comments and advice will not apply.

The string starts with both the hot and one side of the first bulb tied, followed by several bulbs in series. and the neutral tied to the other side of the last bulb in the first series group. Then the sequence repeats.

If only one section is damaged then it could work to just remove that section. The gap between sections is at the spaces that have only two wires between the bulbs.

If there are more than three wires between the bulbs my advice will not apply directly, except to save the bulbs to be spares for the replacement strings.

 

Do you have a second string that you could compare, side-by-side.

 

While your work may help someone else -- assuming they are willing to accept the risk associated with such a repair, particularly on outdoor light exposed to the elements using mains power -- it is far from universal. Different manufacturers (and different product lines) use different wiring schemes for light strings like this. So someone blindly following your conclusions could actually create a very dangerous situation when they apply it to their light string.

I would recommend running new lights after shooting the squirrels, or to forget the lights and enjoy the cute squirrels. Or explore lighting solutions that are specifically intended to be squirrel-resistant.

 

Although the actual circuit is fairly simple, the actual connections are difficult to decipher. The real challenge is that there are multiple series strings of bulbs wired in parallel. What makes it a serious challenge is that there is only one color of wire,, and none of the connections are identified.
One option, is to count the bulbs to be able to know how many go in each series string.
The fact is that no mater what, the repair process will be quite tedious, and require careful work to keep it safe.