Daytime rats eating chicken feed. Not allowed to use rodenticide in my area due to owls, Hawks, coyotes and domestic dogs of course.

[RoyalChick]

No one will ever accuse me of overselling my feeders. LOL I do lot in the product copy trying to offend the OCD types just to manage expectations. And I watch for red flags, if someone acts entitled in their emails, wants to argue or complain before I sell them anything, or just acts like a jerk I'll refuse to sell or even cancel their order and refund their money. End of year profit margin is usually around $5.00 per feeder, tis no trouble worth such a small amount of money.

There there is the majority of my customers, patient, forgiving, just wanting to stop the rats. Those type I'll bend over backwards for. Once in a while something goes horribly wrong and the customer is so laid back I feel horrible for what happened. Maybe a broken axle every couple of year, crushed feeder during shipping.... shipping lady messes up while I am on a trip. Things that keep me up at night worrying. LOL

Mamma hens... no stopping that probably but we are gonna try.

I sent you a PM as I am still figuring out the possibilities and am only part way through the info on your website but I know I will have questions and didn’t want to clog this thread.
Hope that is OK.

 

[Al Gerhart]

Of course. I love it when people go through the info on the website and ask questions. The ones that scare me are the ones that don't read the website. You can answer their questions but you never know what they didn't learn and don't know to ask questions about.

 

[Al Gerhart]

Yes, I learned that the hard way (almost the VERY hard way) when they were about 2 weeks old. Came home from work and one of them had its leg caught in the door, had been laying there who knows how long in a rainstorm. Fortunately it was in shock but recovered with some time in the incubator. They are about 8 weeks old now, so I let them out in the run when I'm not around. They can't work the treadle feeders on their own, but they are a good height to where it seems safe when they reach in to snatch a bit of food when a bigger chicken opens the door because they are tall enough that they can pull out of the door when it starts to close.

Yes, that is one of the dangers of a treadle feeder with too small birds. They get up into the feeder, door closes, in in the case of the guillotine style lids like the Grandpa Xi feeder, a chicken steps down onto the lid and the lid comes down and crushes them. Once they hit a couple of pounds it is a lot safer for them to learn to snatch food when they can.

As we say in Oklahoma, farm animals are never 10% safe around moving machinery and Oklahoma State Senators.