Hello! As a keeper of the sacred chicken keeping knowledge, I seek your counsel.
My parents share a backyard with a neighbor who recently started keeping chickens. Since then there has been an uptick in rodent activity around the home (in a city, they have one of those long skinny backyards). There were already rodents due to the garden, but now there are more. I suspect there is something the neighbors are not doing adequately with regard to their chicken-keeping hygiene (and garden keeping, though that’s a different neighbor). I have already advised strongly against use of outdoor cats, poison, and glue traps, all of which the neighbors are considering. What are some things they could do to make the chicken area a less attractive place for rodents without resorting to cruelty and ecosystem damage?
I present this picture of my cockatiels as an offering and thanks:
The best way to deter rodents is to secure your feed and make your coops and runs inhospitable to rodents.
Chickens (most birds tbh) are messy eaters who love to fling their food with their face and kicking it around with their dinosaur feet respectively.
This not only makes it easy for pests to find food it also means ALOT of feed gets wasted meaning you have to buy more feed which can get expensive.
Feed being on the ground especially in the coop or run also encourages parasites and mold growth due to decomposing feed.
Sadly most accessible feeders found in stores are not good for this problem so usually its not most keepers fault or lack of trying to prevent pests
(Below is the most common type of feeder in stores, )
Its easy to see the mess that was made from me just bumping it, any sort of pest can just waltz right in and have a field day with all that exposed food.
Its perfectly fine for brooder babies but outdoor birds will waste most of the feed from feeders like this
These DIY feeder types i have posted below in paticular are very well loved since you can close it off at night and chickens have a harder time being picky
Less picky chickens means healthier birds, more eggs, and more efficient feed exchange.
NO MESS, NO RATS, NO FUSS!Get this manual as a convenient, downloadable PDFTraditional feedersare a pain in the ass!A lot of the problems th
Your neighbors can make whatever changes they want to it. Whats most important is that the feed is secured at night and the chickens have a harder time making a mess.
(Most people make multiple feeders since some bully chickens wont let others eat if there is just 1 tube.)
Some chickens may need to be encouraged to stick their head in it at first with treats if they have only known 1 feeder type.
After the new feed system is in place you will want to bring down the population by setting out baited repeater traps like a rolling bucket trap to catch large parts of the pest population.
Also i am not a keeper of sacred knowledge, this knowledge is for everyone :) even a young child (with guidance) can raise and keep chickens in my opinion. I hope this DIY feeder idea helps!
