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How can I stop wild birds eating my chickens' pellets?

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I have a problem with wild birds hanging around the eglu eating my hens pellets. The hens don't seem to mind but I do as it's costing a fortune feeding the wild bird population and I'm also concerned about viruses/bacteria being passed on to my hens from the wild birds.

Does anyone have any solutions to keep the wild birds away?

 

[*] (green eglu)

[*] GNR [*] (white chicken) [*] (Bluebelle)(Bluebelle)

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some people place the food containers under cover, say under a small childs play table, to discourage the birds; or hanging up strips of the sort of stuff people hang on back doors to discourage flies on the entrance to the chicken run.

I have the same problem, especially bad in the spring, but I haven't had a huge amount of success with anything.

On the positive side, my chickens don't appear to have picked up anything nasty from the birds.

J

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I feed lots of wild birds via a bird table and they have never shown any interest in the hens food or run. But I am not sure if this is because they are already full up from the bird table treats or I'm just lucky?

 

BTW, the girls think that the bird table provides manna from heaven and they loiter underneath it hoping for messy eater crows to descend.

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Hi everyone,

 

We had the same problem with small birds eating the layers ration. Whilst I didn't like the waste of food I was more concerned with the possibility of the wild birds bringing a disease to my gals. We installed one of these auto feeders two weeks ago. So far works great and the gals soon get used to it.

 

 

http://www.parklandproducts.co.uk/page0.php

 

 

 

Fider_1.JPG

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Sadly not Aint "Ooops, word censored!"ody

 

Henreitta - pellets are released by knocking the yellow toggle at the bottom of the unit. You can adjust the height, so if you put it at its lowest about 9" off the ground and then put some pellets underneath one of them will knock the lever with her back. It doesn't take them long to twig the idea. They all seem to quite happily go up and knock the lever when they want a snack. Though at times of peak demand the one doing the knocking won't necessarily get the goodies. I throw a couple of handfuls on the ground when I let them out of the cube and they soon hoover these up.

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Hi eggregiousness - we have 14 gals. The barrel of the feeder is plastic as is the lid and seals with one of those barrel lock things, so food in there will keep as well as in an open plastic bag. At the moment its about 20% full there's a funnel arrangement inside so that the food funnels down to the shoot waiting for the toggle to be nudged by the gals. Now and again I'll rattle it up for anything stuck on ledges etc. So if I haven't explained that too well there's about 5 Kg in it now and it works fine.

 

As to the size and weight - I was expecting bigger and heavier considering it takes a 25Kg bag, but when it arrives it's quite light in the box with only the legs to fix on.

 

Hi henriette - you could put in less than the full bag if you wished.

 

I like them but they're probably not for everyone. We also had a problem with rogue sheep eating the layers ration, to the extent that they would bend the eglu weldmesh run to get to it - huge eggs though :lol:

 

I'll try and put some pictures of the feeder up if I get a chance, which might give you a better perspective..

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Hi everyone - I promised some pictures of the auto feeder to give a better perspective of its size.

 

 

 

P1000777-1.jpg

 

The feeder with a cube in the background

 

 

P1000780.jpg

 

From a different angle

 

 

P1000775.jpg

 

This is the inside of the feeder. There is little food left but it is still dispensing food. You can just about see a ledge where the food might get hooked up.

 

 

Just before I sound like a rep for the company, there is an adjustment to the flow of food near the toggle end - fast, slow and off.

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