'Rodent Proof' Chicken Feeder
As you can see, this month, we introduced our chickens to a new pellet feeder, the blue barrel. We did this for one simple reason, rats. We noticed these pesky vermin coming to feast at night, so I looked online for a feeder considered 'rodent proof', or at least something to discourage them. Our old conventional feeder had food just sitting there on display at all times. The nighttime camera trap footage showed rats running wild enjoying the free bonanza. Definitely not ideal! After some careful research, I settled on this raised barrel design, commonly used by gamekeepers to raise pheasant. The barrel possesses a little leaver dangling just underneath it, called a ' Trigger Happy ' feeder system. When a chicken pecks the leaver, a few pellets sprinkle to the ground. The chickens just love foraging for the fallen pellets. This means there is never a pile of uneaten pellets lying around below the feeder. The sanitary nature of this system is doing wonders to counter t...
