Training to use a treadle feeder

[Lady Honkington]

Hi there!

My flock is free ranged in my yard and mixed of 8 month old ladies to 13 week old teenagers and I have an issue with wild birds eating their feed. I bought a treadle feeder thinking they'd get it, but no. They didn't.

I left it open for a week and the wild birds used it more and the chickens avoided it.

Should I try new training methods or just cut my losses and sell the treadle feeder? What did you guys do to introduce it?

 

[MarkRainbolt]

Is your treadle shinny metal? If so you can put a peice of artificial grass on it. They will step on the grass faster then the metal .
Mark

 

[Lady Honkington]

Is your treadle shinny metal? If so you can put a peice of artificial grass on it. They will step on the grass faster then the metal .
Mark

Yes, the whole thing is shiny metal. They seem to understand the "step = unlimited food" but the motion seems to scare them

I'll try the artificial grass though. Thank you!

 

[MarkRainbolt]

They will start using it when they get hungry enough. Make sure you don’t have any other feed out except for what’s in the treadle feeder or they will never use it.
Mark

 

[RojoMarz]

If you don't give up before they do, they will use it. I have a Ratproof Feeder and followed his training program. He doesn't recommend propping the door open as that doesn't teach them how to get food. My girls have gotten used to the noise and the newbies have been trained by the last year girls.

 

[texsuze]

I'm not a fan of withholding feed from the chickens. I used the treadle feeder but had a conventional feeder available, too. I trained my girls on a treadle feeder by placing it in a "safe" location, using the term "Step Up" and just spending the necessary time showing them how it worked. Used some special mealworms as treats, too. My older BA never learned the technique; my younger girls learned how. I could say "Step Up" and they'd walk over and step on the platform.

Of course that was after a squirrel learned to use the treadle before anyone did! Mr./Ms. Squirrel climbed into the hopper once and got trapped. Then Mr./Mrs. Cottontail figured out how to get the food and was waiting at the barn door each morning.

It didn't take long for me to scrap the treaadle feeders and give them away at a community swap event. Too noisy, not all chickens ended up being ok with using the feeder, squirrels getting trapped--not an option! Plus on our ranch, any feeder that comes in contact with the ground will eventually be invaded by fire ants. Just sayin'.

 

[Al Gerhart]

Yeah, I doubt if any treadle feeder is rabbit proof, they have the weight and the reach to use it. To be fair a chicken feeder is expected to be in a coop. Asking a treadle feeder to eliminate all feed theft is not a valid complaint no matter who makes the feeder.

To the OP, is it the Grandpa feeder, AKA the Granpa Xi feeder? You said you had to block it open so I assumed it was that or one of the other Chinese made clones of the Granda Xi feeder. If so that is a huge flaw in their design, requiring the feeder to be blocked open because as one poster has already mentioned it teaches the birds that the lid isn't supposed to move when they use the feeder.

The other issue is the free range. If you are expecting a chicken to learn to use a treadle feeder they HAVE to be cooped up with NO other feed available. Including old feed in any deep litter, snacks, free range, nothing but the feed in the feeder. The hens HAVE to get hungry so they are motivated enough to overcome their fear of the shiny contraption that has invaded their space. A half day is plenty for most flocks, one bird will learn and teach the others.m Occasionally there will be bullying issues, so if that happens remove the bully for a few days so the smart hen can teach a few more hens. Usually the smart hen learns in a few minutes or hours, others gang up on the feeder at first then figure out how to operate it themselves.

No matter the manufacture of the feeder make sure it is sitting solidly on the ground and fastened to a post, a wall, or to a big chunk of plywood staked to the ground. If the feeder is wobbly the hens won't trust stepping on it. A lot of the Chinese made feeders like the Granda feeders are stable when full of food but less so when half empty so find a way to secure it. Make sure the treadle actually bottoms out on something solid too. And have someway of forcing the hens to come in from the front, gallon jugs of water, cement blocks, a chunk of firewood.