Rat

[icornish]

Hi,

It seems we have a local "friendly" rat, that is now being dealt with via the traditional solutions...

HOWEVER, the little blighter keeps upsetting the Laydee's feeder, and is chucking the feed all over the ground. The chickens then decide not to eat this food....

Any thoughts on what we can do to stop little blighter getting to the feed? I've tried raising the feeder, but then the laydees are too lazy to stretch their necks that little further!

[chris]

I think if they're hungry enough they'll stretch - mine have to for their water (otherwise they kick woodchip into it!)

[Suechooks]

Presumably it's doing this at night so the solution would be to remove the feeder at night and put it in a rat proofplace and put it back each morning. Clear up any spilt feed at bedtime then he'll have to go hungry.

[BigShot]

Reminds me a little of an old joke:

Two farmers were talking over by their boundary hedge when one mentioned his dog's picky taste in food: "I can't get him to eat anything cheaper than a good steak!"
"No such trouble here," replied his neighbour "my dog eats turnip greens."
"My dog wouldn't eat that." said the first.
His neighbour replied, "Neither would mine - for the first two weeks."

[jessmorris]

You could try those feeders where the hens have to stand on a lever - prob the rat wouldn't be as heavy so wouldn't be able to open the feeder??

[RichmondHens]

What about a peck feeder (the type used to feed game birds)? We use them, and the rats can't really get at the feed beyond winkling out a few pellets here and there, although tbh I've not seen one try, and in any case we cap them at night with flower pots to stop anything feeding from them.

[petal]

i remove feed at bedtime, also we have 2 nasty tom cats that hate rats....