Tired of feeding freeloaders

[redinator]

I've seen many plans for pretty simple feeders that have step mechanisms. There is a step/plate the chicken stands on when walking up to the feeder. Their weight causes the feeder door to open. They eat their fill. When they walk away, the plate rises so the door closes. They would need a couple days without the mechanism working so they know where the feed is but after that you're good to go!

The other option is just feeding meals instead of leaving feed out all the time.

That's the treadle feeder we currently have and the fat little varmints (squirrels) are heavy enough to operate it.

 

[Debbie292d]

I'm wondering if you have the means to make a diversion.

We border a forest, and have lots of squirrels and chipmunks. They all congregate under a huge wild bird feeder that's filled with sunflower seeds, that is far from the coops. (Only sunflower seeds to keep the sparrows and starlings away.)

The cardinals mostly, drop seeds, and over the years our lawn has raised a few inches in that area. The chickens, ducks, wild birds, squirrels and chipmunks gather there. The chickens or dogs run the squirrels off though. Our chickens are most likely exposed to lots of mites and lice, but never get them (diatomaceous earth the coops monthly).

We very rarely will have a chipmunk go in the coop, never a squirrel. Either the chickens, cats, or dogs get the chipmunks, as I just see bodies, so I don't know who got 'em.

 

[redinator]

I'm thinking I might switch to crumbles instead of pellets . . . since squirrels seem to prefer things they can hold in their greedy little paws and keep a lookout.

At least if they're head is down while they're gobbling feed my dog might have a chance to sneak up on them.

 

[bravecoconut]

That's the treadle feeder we currently have and the fat little varmints (squirrels) are heavy enough to operate it.

Well damn...

 

[redinator]

Well damn...

That's what I said, lol.

 

[Mother of Chaos]

We haven't had a predator problem, just pests (mice and squirrels). I and two of my neighbors have dogs, which seems to deter most predators.

My dog has caught several mice, which she brings into the house to show me she's doing her job, lol. She's also caught and killed an opossum, thankfully she couldn't drag it through the dog door, I found it on the landing the next morning. I would've died waking up to that on my bedroom floor.

I'm interested in what your setup looks like. Could you attach photos?

Oh, I agree; I think of squirrels and whatnot as nuisances. I was just trying *waves hands* to describe an unwalled run, or at least an un-solid-walled run. The coop itself is a Nestera sitting on a platform about 3’ off the ground with a hanging feeder and the shell and grit supplements.

Things are looking pretty beaten-down here at the moment in our tiny city backyard. I had knee surgery in early summer, and so we turned over the raised beds and other backyard areas to the chickens to let them do “soil preparation.” It must have worked - I planted a fall garden in Brussels sprouts and chard seedlings on Thursday (3 days ago), and they’ve more than doubled in size.

The silver-grey shape in the second pic is a Coolaroo shade sail over part of their raised bed area.

 

[redinator]

Oh, I agree; I think of squirrels and whatnot as nuisances. I was just trying *waves hands* to describe an unwalled run, or at least an un-solid-walled run. The coop itself is a Nestera sitting on a platform about 3’ off the ground with a hanging feeder and the shell and grit supplements.

Things are looking pretty beaten-down here at the moment in our tiny city backyard. I had knee surgery in early summer, and so we turned over the raised beds and other backyard areas to the chickens to let them do “soil preparation.” It must have worked - I planted a fall garden in Brussels sprouts and chard seedlings on Thursday (3 days ago), and they’ve more than doubled in size.

The silver-grey shape in the second pic is a Coolaroo shade sail over part of their raised bed area.

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My yard is a constant work in progress too. My yard has a 6 foot high privacy fence with pavers buried under the perimeter (that was to keep my dogs from digging out as puppies).

A friend teases me that I spent the last few years trying to get the grass to grow, then I got chickens to tear it all up again, lol. I said, "I didn't know it at the time, but I was preparing a nice yard for the chickens."

 

[Debbie292d]

I'm thinking I might switch to crumbles instead of pellets . . . since squirrels seem to prefer things they can hold in their greedy little paws and keep a lookout.

At least if they're head is down while they're gobbling feed my dog might have a chance to sneak up on them.

We use Kalmbach's Flock Maker crumbles in every coop and pen. I never thought about that though that squirrels would rather have pellets. I think you could be onto something!

 

[redinator]

I think I have a plan:

Once they finish up this current bag of pellets I'll switch to crumbles add cayenne, put the feeder closer to the house (further from the tree line) under a patio table so it's still in the shade.

Having it further from the tree line and closer to house will give my dog a better chance of seeing and catching the varmints before they can gorge themselves.

 

[Al Gerhart]

I'm not talking about the chickens. So far I've tried three different types of feeders:

There was the very basic ports cut into the bucket feeder . . . which I quickly realized was feeding mice more than it was my chickens. I still use this when I have chicks that are too small to operate the newest feeder (we'll get there in a minute)

Then I tried this: https://a.co/d/0YZY6Ch , a port style feeder with high legs. It thwarted the mice simply because it was too high for them to reach, so they moved on. Then I witnessed the squirrels hanging from the top of the feeder and reaching in to get the goods while the chickens waited patiently for the squirrels to move on.

Then I switched to a treadle feeder: https://a.co/d/0YZY6Ch which seemed to work for awhile, but now the squirrels figured out how it works and they're apparently heavy enough to make it work . . . probably from all the chicken feed they've been eating the fat little varmints.

These seem to be the most common ones. Are there other feeders I'm not aware of that will keep out the wildlife? Chicken feed isn't cheap. If it's possible I'd like to find one that young chicks and full grown chickens can both use, but not feed every critter within 200 miles. Is there something I could add to the feed that squirrels, in particular, don't like that wouldn't deter the chickens from eating it? Mice aren't heavy enough (yet) to operate the treadle feeder, so squirrels are the current problem.

I have an open-air coop/run, so keeping things like mice and squirrels out of it is impossible. I thought about putting feeders in a plywood box with an automatic door, but that would still need to be open during the day so the chickens can still have access to it.

TIA

Your link for the "treadle feeder" seems to be the same high leg port feeder, but, knowing the competition that is sold on Amazon it is likely one of the Chinese made feeders like the Grandpa or one of its many clones. They are NOT rodent proof, reading their negative reviews shows that. They could sometimes work IF you didn't have to block the feeder open for three weeks to train the chickens. Getting your bluff in is good enough some times. That said, leaving the feeder open for three weeks is NOT for training, it is for limiting the number of product returns.

If one offered a money back guarantee for two years you better have a perfect product that can just be dumped out of the box and tossed into the coop and work 100% of the time and not fail, ever. One return, which shouldn't be resold due to disease, plus the shipping both ways and the cost of Amazon processing the return, will wipe out the profit from the next ten to fifteen feeders. Grandpa gets by, according to online reviews, by offering a two year guarantee then usually not honoring it. With enough advertising from websites earning the Amazon commission that is a viable marketing method if your morals are not conflicting with your actions.

Amazon though, the return period is only 30 days. Telling people to leave the feeder blocked open in various amounts for three weeks burns up 75% of the return window. People being people means that most are decent sorts and will blame themselves for the failings and either keep plugging away or burn up the last week reaching out for help and accepting that help from the seller to attempt to fix the failings.

Window is closed, no return. Trying to back-charge on the credit card just puts a mark on your credit history and leads to Amazon firing you as a customer.

Sorry for the rant... back to what you asked.

You will not find a ratproof treadle feeder on Amazon. The cost of selling there, subsidizing the shipping, shipping product around the country to try to cut shipping costs costs almost as much as just shipping from one point in the center of the country. Add the returns wiping out a huge chunk of your profit. The only items that survive on Amazon are those with huge profit margins. Think three to four times the selling price. Now you can grind out a 5 to 10% profit at the end of the year which is average for a lot of industries.

Now, some of these feeders are poor designs but MIGHT work if you didn't follow the self serving instructions on training. Get the bluff in and hope the rodents move on for easier pickings.

But, to stop rodent you need:

A narrow and distant treadle, not a huge honking wide platform they can gang up on.
A spring loaded door that increases the pressure the wider the door opens, with a good amount of pre load on the door to prevent a rat from just pushing the door open. A half pound up will work for new rat infestations.
The door HAS to open inward, not up and down, so as to trap the rats if they manage to gang up on the treadle or simply push the door open. Once a feeder has smothered a few dozen rats they will not touch the feeder again until a new population moves in that doesn't have that institutional knowledge from the old colony.
The spring tension needs to be adjustable to allow for increased tension if you are trying to wipe out a bad rat colony but to back off on the tension once the colony is gone to allow the smaller birds or breeds to feed by themselves.

And you have to be willing to follow the darned instructions to the very letter, nothing added, nothing left out, and ask for help if you aren't sure how to interpret the instructions.

On to squirrels. They are three times harder to stop but the same features with an increased door tension, say four to five pounds, will stop them. Next to a big woods and the squirrels share the chicken coop territory? Get ready to dump the feed into a barrel and drown the trapped squirrels because you won't stop three to four squirrels cooperating. The feeder has a cleat, lift it off, dump the feed into a box or barrel, the squirrels cannot get through the narrow throat of the feeder. Set the feeder in a barrel of water and wait one hour to be sure they aren't just stunned. I'd set them on fire with gasoline just to be sure LOL. You eventually will run out of enough squirrels that there aren't enough to gang up.

Or, if you have a breed that is five to eight pounds, crank down the door spring tension until they cannot get in and keep spare springs on hand.

Spicing up the food, it has been tried with rats in scientific studies. Works for a few days if there is no other feed available or it slows down the feed theft, then it climbs back up to normal as the rats get used to the taste and then the feed theft increases to over the plain feed as the rats have learned to like the extra spice.

Does it work for squirrels? Don't know, highly unlikely. What I do know is that the dose rate in those studies was so high that you would double the cost of the feed after adding cayenne pepper.

Thank you The Moonshiner for pointing out the post.