oh no...not another feeder question. keeping birds and rats out? treadle designs?

[Al Gerhart]

As long as the treadle door is spring loaded it will stop rats. It needs to be at least three to four pounds of pressure and you are correct that most treadle feeders are not spring loaded they won't stop rats.

The hanging bucket or feeder won't work with rats, they just learn to jump up and hit the toggle. Sparrows have been known to do the same. Might buy some time but they will figure it out.

 

[0die]

As long as the treadle door is spring loaded it will stop rats. It needs to be at least three to four pounds of pressure and you are correct that most treadle feeders are not spring loaded they won't stop rats.

The hanging bucket or feeder won't work with rats, they just learn to jump up and hit the toggle. Sparrows have been known to do the same. Might buy some time but they will figure it out.

I suppose you could raise the bucket at night and lower in the morning. but that kinda defeats the purpose of having a feeder you can leave alone and keep rats away.

 

[GreenHaven]

I have 3 coops, each with a treadle feeder, my feed loss has decreased tremendously. The rat population got curbed, with stopping the free access to the chicken feed, they started finding the zap traps attractive, I havent seen a rat in weeks. Between the zap traps and the dog we killed maybe 20+ rats in two months.

All the chickens picked up how to open the feeder very quickly.

I do have silkies in 2 of the coops and they are not heavy enough to open the lid all the way, so I do put a brick on the treadle each morning and remove it at night. This works for me.

What’s a zap trap?