- Aug 27, 2014
- 140
- 62
- 162
Does it work with bantam?
Rat Proof Feeder - Review
- Thread starter Howard E
- Start date
- Thread starter
- #12
My first thought would be no, but I'd check with the guy who makes them to see what his experience is. I have full sized birds (RIR, etc) and the treadle is already far enough from the feeder they stand with one foot on the deck between the treadle and feeder, and the other foot held back to hold the treadle down. The space is almost too wide for them. A bantam could hold the treadle down, but would not be able to reach the feed from back there.
My guess is the treadle would have to be modified by either making the wood part larger or moving it in, and drilling a new hole to move the counterweight closer to the pivot point. Or perhaps he (or you) could make a bantam sized treadle?
My guess is the treadle would have to be modified by either making the wood part larger or moving it in, and drilling a new hole to move the counterweight closer to the pivot point. Or perhaps he (or you) could make a bantam sized treadle?
Many of them have adjustable hinge so lighter birds can use it, so check with the supplier, but I am afraid if you adjust the hinge too light then rats will be able to use it.
That worried me too, as I have bantams. Also, with 45 birds, one feeder would never do! The mice are a royal pain, though. Mary
- Thread starter
- #15
Epilogue:
Recently had a chance to clean out the old litter.....
and replace it with new.......
Old litter had been in place since the feeder went in, so that has been in use several months.
When I dug out the old litter, I didn't find any mice, mouse tunnels or mouse holes. Just bare dirt.
I'd say the rat proof feeder is doing it's job!
Recently had a chance to clean out the old litter.....
and replace it with new.......
Old litter had been in place since the feeder went in, so that has been in use several months.
When I dug out the old litter, I didn't find any mice, mouse tunnels or mouse holes. Just bare dirt.
I'd say the rat proof feeder is doing it's job!
What a great review and post, warts and all on our product which we love to see and get the feedback. I rarely have the luxury of this much time to post on BYC but I probably should answer some of the questions posed in this thread.
Quality
Yeah, we do plead guilty to having a fairly crude product. In our opinion engineering a product is first making it reliable and durable, second is affordable, pretty is way down the list. However we do understand that a lot of people look at the aesthetics of a product and might judge a book by its cover., that is a wise tactic most of the time. Given the cheap labor we have in the Philippines where we make our feeders we could make it much prettier but at a higher cost and boy is it tough to get machinery and supplies into that country. Another thing, selling a product that needs assembly to OCD types is not a good idea so crude is a good thing. BTW, we are an American company, American owned and American ran shop overseas, and very little money stays overseas. I personally inspect each feeder before it is shipped.
Instructions
We have struggled with the instructions too over the years since this product came to life on this very BYC forum in 2012/2013. Too long and people complain and won't read, too short and you leave out important details. We did some videos last year that help and have them plastered all over our Facebook, Youtube, website, and shopping cart but getting links into printed instructions.... tough to get people to take the time to copy that info into a browser. Maybe we need a CD to include in the feeder? But yes, the block gets screwed to a wall or post, some wire it to a sturdy fence but a solid object is better, then you slip the feeder over the block and run screws in from the side.
And yes, that treadle has to bottom out. The reviewer did a great job installing his feeder once he realized why this is so important. Birds are great at balancing on limbs but learning to use the feeder and having it wobble around isn't optimum. And yes, the feeder will turn over if a eight pound bird jumps on it so having it secured to a wall, post, fence, or a big chunk of plywood that is staked to the ground prevents overturning and it also makes the birds more confident when learning to use the feeder. French cleats can be made using the block that we supply, simply rip it at a 45 degree angle, any angle actually and fasten half to the feeder and half to the wall. Another one of those small things that we could do to make the feeder better but again it drives up the cost a bit each time we have to do something extra. Maybe we could offer these as an add on or option....
Optional Feed Lip and Feed Raking
The optional feed lip, yes, rarely needed, maybe 5% of customers have a bird that will rake so much that it defeats the 1/2” angled feed lip already on the feeder. We sell them on their own for a buck and another $2.00 for shipping although it is getting more like $3.00 to ship recently.
Stainless Steel
We did look at stainless steel for the feeder and found out that it is possible to use it for the treadle bar at a cost of about $2.00 per feeder. Doesn't sound like a lot until you are making a thousand feeders at a time. Hard on our manual punches that cut the 1/4” holes in the treadle bar and some of the chicks (LOL, ,bad pun) that help make our feeders can't pull that hard on the machine punch handle. Yeah, we use some girl power at our Philippines shop to the shock and dismay of some of the locals. Very conservaitve society on some things. We also looked at stainless steel for the body of the feeder but the cost and difficult in shearing it and punching the holes using hand punches set us back on doing a stainless steel version for now.
Noise
All Ball, we do have a soft close feeder for $15.00 more and you can retrofit your older model feeder for the same cost. Plenty of videos up on our websites showing how to retrofit or install the soft close kit. You can even fasten a styrofoam block on the back of the door and make the darned feeder almost silent in operation. And if you have problems with one of our feeders please, please, please, email us and send us pictures or videos. I might be wrong but I believe from one of the comments the poster of this review might have contacted us with questions or concerns and we were able to get him going and make the feeder work for his flock. Emails though please, no phone calls! Much easier to help via email.
Eating from the Side
And a cure for the reach around eaters is to set the feeder in a corner and/or add something like a concrete block on either side to stop them from approaching from the side. But as the OP said, hunger is very, very, powerful as a motivator. The will act like velociraptors once they are hungry. The OP covered ALL of the most important things about training and installing our feeders and yeah, they get hungry, they are going to use the feeder in a few hours or a day at most. However, these posts about all the old feed in the litter are true so clean out your pen if you want fast training.
What I especially love about this review is the fact that the reviewer admits that the birds didn't take to the feeder at first and what caused that, the feeder wasn't rock solid installed. On occasion people get angry when we ask them if they followed the directions but every single time we helped people something came out that told us they hadn't read, hadn't followed, or hadn't understood the feeder. Instructions, the install instructions, or the training instructions. I worked with one super smart guy for the better part of a week via email till I found out the problem, he admitted that he wasn't following the instructions but was using logic to train the birds. Logic is great on humans but useless on chickens! He was trying to “acclimate” the birds by blocking the treadle open, something we say over and over again in the instructions to never, ever, do. Once he followed the directions exactly the birds learned that very day. They mobbed the feeder that afternoon after he used his toe to show them the food just like we told him they would. Chickens are chickens, all are timid, all are ferocious once they are hungry.
Outside Installed Feeders
A note on critters and outside installed feeders. Crows and Jays aren't going to defeat the feeder unless there is a lot of them. Not enough reach on a crow even if they overwhelmed the treadle, unless there are enough and they will cooperate by taking turns eating. Rabbits might have enough reach and enough weight if the learned to use their back feet to hold down the treadle. Part of the effectiveness of our feeder is that narrow and distant treadle and part of it is the larger vermin not ever discovering when the feed is located. The spring loaded door does help a lot but enough larger critters are going to be able to push their way in if you have the feeder spring adjusted for smaller birds. Packs of squirrels are a problem too but the feeder will trap them inside so if the door ever won't open you probably have a dead squirrel inside or a very mad one. Take him for a car ride is our best advice.
Bantams
... there is a trade off, if it is set light enough for a bantam to use and has a wider platform the banties can use the feeder but it is also far less ratproof. We sell a bantam step to the the small birds close enough to eat the feed once they have the treadle down and a turkey step to allow the much larger birds enough room to get its much longer head and neck into the feeder. With bantams it is far better to let them learn to eat from the side along with another bird, but block off the actual sides of the feeder so the are on the treadle. Use the soft close, ten times more time for them to react and get their head out of the way. We have a saying in Oklahoma: Barnyard animals are never completely safe around moving machinery and Oklahoma State Senators.
Bantam treadles
We can do that if you request it in writing on the order and email us to make sure someone doesn't miss the order note. We will punch a couple of extra holes in the treadle or even make you a special short bantam treadle bar if given enough time before shipping. However, the spring is easily adjusted using two pairs of pliers (yes, video is online showing how to do this) and the extra holes aren't usually needed and the Bantam Step works far better and is more adjustable than a shorter treadle bar. Normal size birds will find the bantam step too short for easy use of the feeder.
And Naser is correct, the lighter the action the less rat proof even with the spring loaded door.
Follys Place, 45 birds per feeder will work but they will empty the feeder in two to two and a half days. Plus some will have to wait and that generates pecking order battles till they adjust. On huge flocks, some commercial free range flocks use our feeders, you can get away with that many birds per feeder because with twenty feeders there are always some open for business.
Follow Up Posts by the OP
The treadle is almost too narrow for RIR, on purpose, we designed the initial feeder using RIR. One of the reasons why the feeder lip extender is rarely needed is that once you get a hen stretched out with one foot back holding the treadle she has to focus on balancing and eating, not raking feed. And of course to keep the vermin from reaching the feed if a dozen of them mobbed the treadle. One or two large rats won't be strong enough to overcome the door preload spring so chance are they will have starved out and left before enough of them try to push their way in past the stiff spring loaded door. Another reason for never, ever, blocking the door of a treadle feeder open. Once vermin know the feed is inside and how to get to it they are much harder to keep out.
Anyway, our thanks to the OP for the wonderful review and detailed feedback. If anyone else has tried and had issues please email with video and pictures of the installation or the birds having problems. Remember, rock solid, bottom out the treadle, adjust the spring using two pairs of pliers, no old feed, no other fee, no free range, follow the training instructions to the very letter, nothing added, nothing missing, and your birds will pick up using the feeder in one day or less. Try to use logic with the chickens, argue with me about how to train, and you have bought an expensive and ugly paperweight. : )
Quality
Yeah, we do plead guilty to having a fairly crude product. In our opinion engineering a product is first making it reliable and durable, second is affordable, pretty is way down the list. However we do understand that a lot of people look at the aesthetics of a product and might judge a book by its cover., that is a wise tactic most of the time. Given the cheap labor we have in the Philippines where we make our feeders we could make it much prettier but at a higher cost and boy is it tough to get machinery and supplies into that country. Another thing, selling a product that needs assembly to OCD types is not a good idea so crude is a good thing. BTW, we are an American company, American owned and American ran shop overseas, and very little money stays overseas. I personally inspect each feeder before it is shipped.
Instructions
We have struggled with the instructions too over the years since this product came to life on this very BYC forum in 2012/2013. Too long and people complain and won't read, too short and you leave out important details. We did some videos last year that help and have them plastered all over our Facebook, Youtube, website, and shopping cart but getting links into printed instructions.... tough to get people to take the time to copy that info into a browser. Maybe we need a CD to include in the feeder? But yes, the block gets screwed to a wall or post, some wire it to a sturdy fence but a solid object is better, then you slip the feeder over the block and run screws in from the side.
And yes, that treadle has to bottom out. The reviewer did a great job installing his feeder once he realized why this is so important. Birds are great at balancing on limbs but learning to use the feeder and having it wobble around isn't optimum. And yes, the feeder will turn over if a eight pound bird jumps on it so having it secured to a wall, post, fence, or a big chunk of plywood that is staked to the ground prevents overturning and it also makes the birds more confident when learning to use the feeder. French cleats can be made using the block that we supply, simply rip it at a 45 degree angle, any angle actually and fasten half to the feeder and half to the wall. Another one of those small things that we could do to make the feeder better but again it drives up the cost a bit each time we have to do something extra. Maybe we could offer these as an add on or option....
Optional Feed Lip and Feed Raking
The optional feed lip, yes, rarely needed, maybe 5% of customers have a bird that will rake so much that it defeats the 1/2” angled feed lip already on the feeder. We sell them on their own for a buck and another $2.00 for shipping although it is getting more like $3.00 to ship recently.
Stainless Steel
We did look at stainless steel for the feeder and found out that it is possible to use it for the treadle bar at a cost of about $2.00 per feeder. Doesn't sound like a lot until you are making a thousand feeders at a time. Hard on our manual punches that cut the 1/4” holes in the treadle bar and some of the chicks (LOL, ,bad pun) that help make our feeders can't pull that hard on the machine punch handle. Yeah, we use some girl power at our Philippines shop to the shock and dismay of some of the locals. Very conservaitve society on some things. We also looked at stainless steel for the body of the feeder but the cost and difficult in shearing it and punching the holes using hand punches set us back on doing a stainless steel version for now.
Noise
All Ball, we do have a soft close feeder for $15.00 more and you can retrofit your older model feeder for the same cost. Plenty of videos up on our websites showing how to retrofit or install the soft close kit. You can even fasten a styrofoam block on the back of the door and make the darned feeder almost silent in operation. And if you have problems with one of our feeders please, please, please, email us and send us pictures or videos. I might be wrong but I believe from one of the comments the poster of this review might have contacted us with questions or concerns and we were able to get him going and make the feeder work for his flock. Emails though please, no phone calls! Much easier to help via email.
Eating from the Side
And a cure for the reach around eaters is to set the feeder in a corner and/or add something like a concrete block on either side to stop them from approaching from the side. But as the OP said, hunger is very, very, powerful as a motivator. The will act like velociraptors once they are hungry. The OP covered ALL of the most important things about training and installing our feeders and yeah, they get hungry, they are going to use the feeder in a few hours or a day at most. However, these posts about all the old feed in the litter are true so clean out your pen if you want fast training.
What I especially love about this review is the fact that the reviewer admits that the birds didn't take to the feeder at first and what caused that, the feeder wasn't rock solid installed. On occasion people get angry when we ask them if they followed the directions but every single time we helped people something came out that told us they hadn't read, hadn't followed, or hadn't understood the feeder. Instructions, the install instructions, or the training instructions. I worked with one super smart guy for the better part of a week via email till I found out the problem, he admitted that he wasn't following the instructions but was using logic to train the birds. Logic is great on humans but useless on chickens! He was trying to “acclimate” the birds by blocking the treadle open, something we say over and over again in the instructions to never, ever, do. Once he followed the directions exactly the birds learned that very day. They mobbed the feeder that afternoon after he used his toe to show them the food just like we told him they would. Chickens are chickens, all are timid, all are ferocious once they are hungry.
Outside Installed Feeders
A note on critters and outside installed feeders. Crows and Jays aren't going to defeat the feeder unless there is a lot of them. Not enough reach on a crow even if they overwhelmed the treadle, unless there are enough and they will cooperate by taking turns eating. Rabbits might have enough reach and enough weight if the learned to use their back feet to hold down the treadle. Part of the effectiveness of our feeder is that narrow and distant treadle and part of it is the larger vermin not ever discovering when the feed is located. The spring loaded door does help a lot but enough larger critters are going to be able to push their way in if you have the feeder spring adjusted for smaller birds. Packs of squirrels are a problem too but the feeder will trap them inside so if the door ever won't open you probably have a dead squirrel inside or a very mad one. Take him for a car ride is our best advice.
Bantams
... there is a trade off, if it is set light enough for a bantam to use and has a wider platform the banties can use the feeder but it is also far less ratproof. We sell a bantam step to the the small birds close enough to eat the feed once they have the treadle down and a turkey step to allow the much larger birds enough room to get its much longer head and neck into the feeder. With bantams it is far better to let them learn to eat from the side along with another bird, but block off the actual sides of the feeder so the are on the treadle. Use the soft close, ten times more time for them to react and get their head out of the way. We have a saying in Oklahoma: Barnyard animals are never completely safe around moving machinery and Oklahoma State Senators.
Bantam treadles
We can do that if you request it in writing on the order and email us to make sure someone doesn't miss the order note. We will punch a couple of extra holes in the treadle or even make you a special short bantam treadle bar if given enough time before shipping. However, the spring is easily adjusted using two pairs of pliers (yes, video is online showing how to do this) and the extra holes aren't usually needed and the Bantam Step works far better and is more adjustable than a shorter treadle bar. Normal size birds will find the bantam step too short for easy use of the feeder.
And Naser is correct, the lighter the action the less rat proof even with the spring loaded door.
Follys Place, 45 birds per feeder will work but they will empty the feeder in two to two and a half days. Plus some will have to wait and that generates pecking order battles till they adjust. On huge flocks, some commercial free range flocks use our feeders, you can get away with that many birds per feeder because with twenty feeders there are always some open for business.
Follow Up Posts by the OP
The treadle is almost too narrow for RIR, on purpose, we designed the initial feeder using RIR. One of the reasons why the feeder lip extender is rarely needed is that once you get a hen stretched out with one foot back holding the treadle she has to focus on balancing and eating, not raking feed. And of course to keep the vermin from reaching the feed if a dozen of them mobbed the treadle. One or two large rats won't be strong enough to overcome the door preload spring so chance are they will have starved out and left before enough of them try to push their way in past the stiff spring loaded door. Another reason for never, ever, blocking the door of a treadle feeder open. Once vermin know the feed is inside and how to get to it they are much harder to keep out.
Anyway, our thanks to the OP for the wonderful review and detailed feedback. If anyone else has tried and had issues please email with video and pictures of the installation or the birds having problems. Remember, rock solid, bottom out the treadle, adjust the spring using two pairs of pliers, no old feed, no other fee, no free range, follow the training instructions to the very letter, nothing added, nothing missing, and your birds will pick up using the feeder in one day or less. Try to use logic with the chickens, argue with me about how to train, and you have bought an expensive and ugly paperweight. : )
- Jul 20, 2013
- 140
- 23
- 116
No one ever mentions roosters. Do they have any trouble with their size or their combs?
Also am I understanding correctly that this must be under cover or it will rust quickly?
Thanks!
Also am I understanding correctly that this must be under cover or it will rust quickly?
Thanks!
- Thread starter
- #18
Know what I love about this thread? The civility and humility demonstrated by both the reviewer and company.
For messy eaters. Take a 2x4x8 and cut into 2 foot sections. Nail it together so that it's square and stands the 3.5 inches high. Nail hardware cloth on one side and a piece of plywood on the other side. Stand any feeder on it and no more spill for rats!
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