I WON!!!

[SemiSweet2391]

Awesome hope it does the trick. Have they ever gotten into the coop or just the run?

Thankfully not the coop, just the run. I don’t keep any food in the coop for that reason.

 

[SemiSweet2391]

Wow I am impressed!! Does it also keep out mice and bugs? Or is it just designed to keep our rats? Either way it's freaking cool and I'm so happy you defeated your nemesis.

I’ve not had issues with bugs so can’t speak to that, but yeah it stops the mice too. I think I have been visited by both based on size discrepancies on the footage. And yeah it feels great to outthink a rat!!

 

[Al Gerhart]

Wow I am impressed!! Does it also keep out mice and bugs? Or is it just designed to keep our rats? Either way it's freaking cool and I'm so happy you defeated your nemesis.

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 day they used pie safes to store pies and baked goods, sitting the feet of the cabinet in cups of kerosene.

 

[Al Gerhart]

Here’s a link to the video. I uploaded it to YouTube:

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 safer for the hens. You could wrap it around the upper wire as long as it isn't binding and can rotate freely. If it binds, it flexes the wire, and the wire metal fatigues quickly.

 

[SemiSweet2391]

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 safer for the hens. You could wrap it around the upper wire as long as it isn't binding and can rotate freely. If it binds, it flexes the wire, and the wire metal fatigues quickly.

Ok I see the wire, I’ll fix that in the morning! Thank you!

 

[McChooky]

The only difference between using an automatic feeder and having an apron around you coop is one keeps the rats out of the feed and the other keeps rats out of the coop in general.You actually need both.

 

[Al Gerhart]

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 elsewhere.

Just remember there are only three ways to control rodents;
Sanitation, control the feed
Fort Knox coop
Poisons and traps

The first is going to cost you a couple hundred bucks by the time you buy a good treadle feeder, buy a metal drum with a tight lid for storing bulk feed, and spend a little cleaning up the pathways so the natural predators can pick off the rats.

The second is going to be expensive for most large coops, easily three to ten times the sanitation method.

The third method will be cheap, ineffective, and never ending. Switching the types of traps and poisons will help but as soon as you clean out the resident population a new batch will move in.

All of this assumes you have mostly full size hens and don't have other sources of food available like food waste in a compost pile or other animal feed available for the rodents. Even if you are close to a forest or prairie with natural foods the rodents have to hustle for their food and predators can eliminate a lot of them, keeping the population in check. They won't have time to hang around your coop once you have controlled the feed.