Jays pecking eggs

[canman47]

I have falsely accused my hens of egg eating, I put a camera in the nest area to see who was doing the damage and to my surprise a Scrub Jay flies in frequently to peck and eat eggs. Also an egg got left in at night and a rat carried off a whole egg. Don't know what I can do. The Jay has to go through a tunnel then into the main coop then into the nesting coop and then fly out again which it is able to do in a few seconds. The rat seems to make a nightly visit about 2am but usually there is nothing there. There are 2 types of baited traps as well as a bait station but the rat shows no interest in these. Pretty hard to keep rats out. How bad are they? We live in Walnut orchards so there's always plenty of food for rodents plus there's no way to avoid food litter on the ground.

 

[cavemanrich]

Generally speaking, Scrub Jay may be considered a song bird, and as with most birds, are protected from killing. Only birds not protected, to my knowledge, are pigeons, and starlings. Consider offering the Jay feed/seeds outside of coop in a birdfeeder.
Now to rats. Yes they are very smart. Consider an alternate bait. That way they may not associate that food as bait-trap. Consider a small piece of salami in trap. Remember,, these will only work for a few times, until the rats get wise to it.

plus there's no way to avoid food litter on the ground.

Well,,, it may be difficult, but any effort is worth a try. Consider offering your chickens feed in a drawer type enclosure that you would have to construct. I use one as such for my chickens to eat out of. It is about 2 feet by 3 feet, with 5 inch sides. Chickens are inside eating out of bowls I place there. At bedtime, I remove bowls, and also scrape out all the billed feed, and keep feed in metal container overnight. In the morning, feed is returned to empty drawer box.
Not sure of your size of flock. You may need a larger size drawer, like a 4 foot , by 4 foot. ½ of a plywood sheet.


WISHING YOU BEST,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,and