Rats

[Al Gerhart]

That will do it. Fort Knox coop. Again I admire the willingness and ability to spend this kind of money on a hobby and I know producing eggs and even mean birds is a break even kind of deal if you are buying commercial feed at the feed store. Safe and healthy birds in that kind of set up.

Curious, what is a locked galvanized feeder? I am assuming it is a feeder you could close off securely at night from the part about raking the litter each night.

 

[NorthFLChickenChick]

That will do it. Fort Knox coop. Again I admire the willingness and ability to spend this kind of money on a hobby and I know producing eggs and even mean birds is a break even kind of deal if you are buying commercial feed at the feed store. Safe and healthy birds in that kind of set up.

Curious, what is a locked galvanized feeder? I am assuming it is a feeder you could close off securely at night from the part about raking the litter each night.

This is what we used…lock it at night, nothings getting in!

The hens leaned how to open it by standing on the ledge pretty quickly!

https://www.grandpasfeeders.com/product/large-chicken-feeder/

 

[Al Gerhart]

Good sized rats just push up the lid on that Chinese made feeder Grandpa feeder and feed during the day. Look at their Amazon reviews, tons of complaints.

Ditto on the other Chinese made versions of that feeder, they simply are not rat proof and the rats will simply feed during the day. Mice probably won't get in unless they enter while a chicken is using the feeder, and some chickens will happily kill smaller mice. Locking it at night is a good idea but doesn't really solve the problem.

Building a rat proof coop is essential if the Grandpa feeder has already been purchased. I've never understood why they don't upgrade the design after more than 20 years and make it actually rat proof. Making it in China allows them plenty of profit to fix the design flaws, but they seem to be unwilling to change anything, and while their manufacture might have resisted the temptation to sell to others there are plenty of clones that are just as good if not better than the Grandpa feeder at cheaper prices.

I had a customer that was an engineer at Ditch Witch. They sold one unit to China back in the early nineties as a "sample", expecting to get into their market. Instead the Chinese copied the ditch digger and sold it at half the price. LOL To compete they had to oursource a lot of manufacturing over there and that just meant the number of competing knock off ditch diggers exploded. Then when you know who, he that shall not be named on the BYC forum, raised the tariffs they were hammered from both ends. Taxed higher on the sub-components and steel they were sourcing from China and still competing in other countries with the Chinese knock offs.

But your coop is an excellent example of Howard E.'s step two in the three step rodent control methods. Far better than using poison and traps and it accommodates smaller breeds and younger pullets. A bit expensive though but you knew it was going to work so it was a good investment.

 

[NorthFLChickenChick]

Yeah, we used the galvanized feeder in our old coop up north and like I said, it was already too late. The rats were already getting in from above and below no matter how little food was left. For fun sometimes I would just put scratch in the uhlik no repeater trap to see how many I could catch…the record was 5 one morning…and when I put the cage out on the picnic table while I let the girls out of the coop, a HUGE gray owl swooped down and literally tried to carry it away…

 

[Al Gerhart]

That had to be sight, an owl trying to abscond with your trap. Did the owl ever bother the chickens? No wonder you wanted a Fort Knox coop!