That is the key word, if done right! I like most men just assume people will know what most consider common sense but sometimes that common sense is just experience that others might not have!
There was a family just South of Midland Arkansas that I knew. Saved and scrimped for years and built...
Not so.
To heat treat for insects in cabinet hardwoods you start at 120 degrees and go up to 140 degrees if you want to kill the eggs, or for for hard to kill insects like bed bugs.
Specifically, drugstore beetles, minimum heat is 125 degrees for four hours to kill all forms including the...
Might put the sack in a steel barrel, hang a couple of 100 watt incandescent bulbs inside, put on a lid, wrap it with something to insulate the barrel, and cook the little buggers over a couple of days. Or put the feed in a barrel with a tight lid and drop in a couple bucks worth of dry ice.
You stop feeding the rats.
It is that simple.
Search using the keywords rats and chickens on this very forum or site wide. Tons of advice available. Forget the old wives tales about strong smells, spices, ultrasonic sound, baking soda or plaster mixed with baits.
There are only three...
Good advice so far.
A lot depends upon the time you have available and if you can keep a strict schedule. Some are retired and don't mind being up every day at daylight to feed the hens and to remove the feed at night. Just starting off you aren't likely to have a rodent problem so you can get...
Amen, I spent a weekend reading the section on chicken diseases at that chicken feeder review site. It was sobering... amazing that any chickens survive but I guess that is why they breed so prolifically, to stay ahead of the predators and the diseases.
You are blessed to have that luxury, so many of us are still working and schedules are packed with kids, work, education... no end to the demands on time.
In my opinion, not having the feed available 24/7 puts you at the mercy of the chickens, you aren't raising them, they are raising you. And...
Ditto, not treatable at all. Saving the bird would just be infecting more birds and passing the disease down the line. Cull and bury deep or incinerate.
True, but who wants to have to be in the coop at daylight and back at dusk to move the feeder and water? Bringing in the feed at night just means any vermin feed during the day. Doesn't stop feed theft, just changes the time of day the theft occurs.
Yeah, they are starving. Chickens are browsers, eating small amounts of food all the time. They need feed available 24/7. If you have a small budget, I'd suggest fewer hens. Or a cheaper feed if you are feeding something expensive like organic.
Without the human source of food the rat colony will move or starve to death. The local natural environment might support one or two rats, they might eat poop for a week or two but that is plant fertilizer, not a food, so eventually and likely very quickly, they will leave for better pickings...
That rat knows where the feed is, just can't get to it! I'm still impressed they can climb that 1/8" wire link.
Oh, you need to bend the extra wire on the treadle link up. Make a U turn. You do not want it to bind so don't wrap it around or anything like that, just a 90 degree bend so it is...
Great question. Just mice, rats, squirrels (if you can set the springs heavy), and wild birds. Anything with less reach than a chicken and less weight than a chicken.
To stop bugs you would need something airtight, very unlikely to be available. Or build a moat around the feeder. Back in the...
...is looking at him. They know I am pissed off and just wiped the floor with him. The dude is humiliated. He nods, walks out the door. He was an *ss, came in looking for a fight, and learned he provoked his way into a butt whoopin. Now that is how most men roll. This Karen in the OP's...