The first one, they came out around 2015 or 2016 if I remember right, Chinese manufactures were pumping them out and the resellers were pushing them. Poor design but I thought they would sell too so I made around 300 of them, probably still have 275 of them. LOL. They will work for food scraps or for wet mash and keep the wild birds out at least. Mice too, not so sure about large rats.
I put a feed lip on my design but you still had to warn customers not to fill the feeder more than half full or the hens would fling the feed. So that 12 pound feeder really could hold six pounds. They are cheap, $36.00, but few sell. They are not as safe as the better ratproof feeders with the inward swinging door but half the price or less...
The plastic feeder, I mean $59.00 plus shipping for something you could make yourself for $20.00 that would do just as poorly.... asking a prey species to ram their head up a tube to eat....
But a good feeder has a couple of things that are essential. You need a large difference in reach and weight, the hen much heavier than a rat and a much longer reach so you can put a narrow and distant treadle, not a big honking wide platform. So far back even large rats can't trip the treadle and reach the feed. The door has to be swinging inward and it MUST have heavy springs that pre load the door so a rat cannot just push the door open. 95% of the feeders on the market offer no springs on the door, check the negative reviews first for how they do with rats. The last must have is no plastic parts.
Don't search on
Amazon or
Ebay. To sell on those platforms you need huge margins to cover the 30% + fees and subsidized shipping or if on
Ebay to cover the huge so called "friendly fraud" where people order then file a "not as described" claim and steal the feeder and the cost of shipping. You can't leave negative reviews for buyers anymore so no one sells there unless you have three to five times markup.
Get online, Google, avoid any sites that have direct links to
Amazon, those are affiliate sellers who get 5% commission so they are NOT going to recommend the best feeder, just the one with the best commission. Look for the little hobby websites or blogs, probably page three to five on Google.
