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Treadle feeder scares my chickens

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Treadle feeder advice.

 

We have had our chickens for a week and weighted our treadle feeder so that they would learn that this was where to food comes from. Yesterday I took the weight off the treadle but the chickens are frightened by the movement and noise of the treadle and won't go near it now I have weighed it down again but they are still cautious. Has anyone experienced this problem adb can offer advice?

 

Thanks

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Yes, ours go running like bats out of hell if they touch it accidentally. It's been outside for some time, although I stopped weighing down the footplate when the chickies started gobbling the big girls food. Now they are all eating layers, I might take Debs advice and see what happens with the corn. I cleaned it all out this evening because it had got water in the hopper and everything went hard as a rock inside - the slugs loved it though - huge ones and a few earwigs - yuk!

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On 10/9/2021 at 11:49 PM, Susan Anderson said:

I can’t get my 3 girls to use it! It’s been week and they won’t step on the treadle. I am so bummed! I have tried putting their favorites in there nothing works! 

Maybe weigh down the treadle first, like the posts above suggest?

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You have to train them in stages over about two weeks. First start with the feeder fully open and no movement on the treadle. Then partially open with a small amount of movement. Then a bit more until the lid is fully closed. They can be a bit noisy in operation so adding some felt pads under the lid and greasing the mechanism will help. You may have to adjust the balance as well, which you can do using self-adhesive weights which you can buy from a tyre fitter and sticking them under the treadle.

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Mine took a couple of weeks to learn how to use it but all fine since.

Slightly different question - I'm struggling with slugs infiltrating mine and eating all of the chicken food. I pull out handfuls of them and get rid of them but a couple of days later and there are probably 10-20 back in there. Has anyone else had this issue and managed to stop them?

Thanks,

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We have had the same problem @rachel84 and the main problem is that slug slime taints the food and the chickens stop eating. Our slugs are not like those in the UK. They are Orange and can reach 4" long. There is also a grey variety which can get bigger, but it's less of a problem because it usually feeds on small slugs. All we did was put the feeders in at night and fetch them out in the morning. Any slugs found in the area are put in a bag in the bin or squashed. Eventually (over a few months) the numbers drop dramatically, but they never stop coming.

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Ok thanks @Beantree - the chickens are still eating the food, I must be getting the slugs out quick enough. I'm going to give the feeder another full empty and wash out over the weekend and I might try and seal it up a bit better. Putting the feeder up out of the way is ok in winter but they are up far earlier than I am in summer so I think i will try and find a more permanent solution.

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Not got chickens any more but our food waste is overrun every year with slugs and we have out front on the paving slabs - slime trails - Yuk  - have you tried nematodes - they help to cut down the numbers and I must admit we had none in the treadle feeder we had but loads of earwigs - they are double yuk!!  Nematodes are safe with chickens.

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