Ever have a dog chew up your shoe..? A little kid that disassembles everything he/she comes across..? Nothing is impervious.. not even bank vaults.. not even Fort Knox as if there was anything to steal. Just use mechanical traps.. the worst that can happen is your pride might be hurt along with your fingers.
If you place the poison where other pets and critters can get to it then you're not using good judgement. There are safe ways. I use the same rat bait stations but I don't have them where pets and other critters can get to them. Rats are good climbers so the bait stations don't have to be at ground level. You can also put the bait stations in a pet carrier where the rats can get to the bait but nothing else can. It works for me and eventually the baits may be hardly or not touched. I haven't found any dead rats but initially I did notice tunnels around my coops and I think the rats went into their tunnels and died and that is why I didn't find any dead rats or dead critters from eating any rats. The baits can be checked regularly through the little window above the bait daily.
Cut down you flock. That's not much feed. I have a lot more birds and I go through around a half ton of feed a month. A half ton is 20 bags. I usually go through around 8 bags a week.
Ok so my parents used to just give their chickens cracked corn. If you think about it
Ok so my parents used to feed their chickens cracked corn and let them free range and that was it. If you think about it chicken feed is basically ground corn with different types of protein such as fish and minerals. And back then people used to just take their corn to mills and they would grind it up for easier consumption. As long as their getting protein say from bugs from free ranging or your table scraps they would be fine but. It is best to feed them a regular feed considering it would help them stay healthier also in the winter their not able to get as much protein. So to try and cut cost you can simply buy a layer feed at tsc and maybe a flock raiser feed.to help supplement the ducks. Ducks love corn and scratch tho. My ducks also eat layer feed but ducks need a higher protein then chickens. So there are different ways you can give them a variety of layer, flock raiser and corn. Like more flock raiser in the winter time and more corn in the summer. You can also ferment your feed which is basically stretching. But that is also time-consuming. I hoped this helped and remember chickens are animals that lived in the wild once so don't stress to much about how much or what your feeding them just try to give them a healthy ratio. I know feed can get expensive so just do your best
( btw sorry this is so long)
No, you cannot. Ever. They can NOT LIVE OFF PF THAT!
I think they are trying to find a way to cut cost. Chicken feed can get expensive. They could technically live off of that. Have you ever been to a duck pond all those ducks get is bread and what ever they can find. They said they also have a river im guessing there are fish in there. It is best tho to supplement with a protein or a feed with higher protein especially in the winter.
Another thing you could do is feed them later during the day around 4 or so. If you let them out to free range in the morning and they ate that morning then they're not as hungry to look for food. So they're relying on their feed rather then bugs. Also for free ranging ducks you could give them feed and what ever they don't eat in about 15 minutes you could take away. Because ducks can go a bit crazy with food. Both chickens and ducks also make a mess with food and can waste it that way as well.
Not a good idea as others have mentioned.
