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

 

[Al Gerhart]

You have vermin coming into your coop bringing pests like lice, mites, fleas, and all sorts of disease. The chicken feed attracted them, a treadle feeder will fix that, but you also need to take bio security seriously and tighten up the coop and run.

Rats are not guaranteed with having chickens. If you practice basic sanitation, bulk feed in metal drums with tight lids, clean up the pathways the rats use to travel to the coop, and buy a good treadle feeder you will not have rats, they will stay where they can find food.

 

[canman47]

I have cameras so I know I have one rat who comes every night. Pregnant mother. She doesn't eat chicken feed. She only wants eggs and rarely gets any since I pick them up before dark. I am in the process of enclosing the whole large coop with metal siding and hardware cloth but it's expensive and time consuming. Obviously chicken wire doesn't keep out rats. Actually I did a super cleanup behind the coop and removed a ton of leaves and debris and haven't seen the rat for 5 nights. We have foxes and owls and hawks that can probably get the rats when they are exposed. I've read bad reviews of almost all treadle feeders. They don't work and they scare the birds and they're expensive. My feeder is elevated and hanging by a wire so hard to get to but not impossible and there is the spilled feed. We are surrounded by Walnut orchards so there is always nuts around so there will always be rodents. It's a constant battle. Previous owners did little and the property was overrun but with many bait stations and traps we hardly see them. Life in the country!

 

[Al Gerhart]

Good start, cleaning up the pathways. But you are dead wrong on treadle feeders. Yes, there are people that give bad reviews, some because they bought a treadle feeder off Amazon and didn't understand that the vendor gives away 35% of the price of the feeder to Amazon. That limits what can be sold to mostly Chinese made crap. Even those poorly designed and poorly made Chinese feeders manage to get 80% good reviews. Others give bad reviews because they refuse to follow instructions. I get at least one email per month saying their chickens are too stupid to use the feeder. Without exception, when you get the pictures of the installed feeder and their explanation, they didn't follow the darned instructions. It wasn't stupid chickens.....

Some recent examples.

One lady was upset because the feeder fell over. Did you fasten it to a wall or post or a big chunk of plywood like the instructions told you to? No..... so an 11" square box that is 20" tall with an additional 9" of treadle sticking out is going to stand upright once it is half full when a nine pound rooster jumps on the treadle?

Another guy had hung his feeder at least two feet off the ground. On a wall mind you so he read part of the instructions. Imagine a eight pound hen flying two feet off the ground trying to hit a 1.75" wide treadle step that would immediately plunge at least 3" down, landing off center, tipping the treadle to one side as the treadle is held up only on one side with a wire connecting link to the door. Imagine the noise when that door slams into the front of the feed tray and the chicken falling off the treadle. How could it not? When the instructions clearly state that the feeder is designed to be fastened to a wall or post so the treadle can bottom out on something while the hen stands on the other leg. Once he sent pictures, I pointed out the obvious, his chickens suddenly weren't stupid because they used the feeder the next morning once it had been installed according to the instructions.

Another one that led to us changing the way that the springs were installed. Imagine a 12" long wire link taped to the side of the feeder right where it is installed with pictures in the instructions (at the time). Clear instructions on how to install it after it had been pre installed and removed for shipping. Then there is the 4" long spring. Imagine someone confusing the two, stretching the 4" spring and trying to connect the door crank to the treadle..... it was no longer a spring, it was a length of twisted piano wire.

Another favorite was the lady who swore her chickens refused to use the feeder. Patiently go over the instructions with her. Next day, no joy. This goes on for about five days when the lady reports that her husband had been going out after lunch each day and hand feeding the chickens because he thought they were hungry. Chickens aren't stupid, they figured out they would be hand fed if they refused to use the feeder. The lady reported the next night that her chickens were now using the feeder after she stopped her husband from interfering with the training.

Bottom line, any product will have some bad reviews. We have probably 95% five star rating and tons of independent reviews scattered all over the internet. The one to two percent of negative reviews, they always say more about the person than they do about what they bought. But a company selling on a difficult to service platform like Amazon is still going to have more good reviews than bad reviews. You have to read what they say, sometimes the person is simply an idiot like the lady upset because possums can use the treadle feeder she bought off Amazon. How could it not? It weighs more than a chicken, it has a longer reach.....