Rats and feeding birds

[BarrelOfOtters]

Spotted a fat and happy rat on the ground feeder yesterday. I’ve now got an unhappy blackbird, sparrows and a robin glaring at me as I haven’t refilled it.

we’ve got a metal legged outdoor table, if I put it on ther3 would that keep the rats away…

any tips?

Nope, rats can climb up table legs. If you put bird food out it will attract rats, there's no way round that. Hanging ng it as high as possible and trying to make sure none goes on the ground by having a seed catcher underneath is best. Rats will eat anything birds eat.

We keep chickens and it's basically impossible to keep all corn off the ground though we hang their feeders high and only put out a little at a time for this reason. There's no magic way to deter rats but the more you try and minimize their access to food the less you will see of them.

We get rats joining in with the feeding. When they get big, my son shoots them.

If you feed birds, you will have rats.

That might not be a big problem if the feeder is a good distance away, but it it's close to your house, then it's more of a problem.

We've stopped putting out seeds but keep the garden as bird-friendly as possible so they have nesting places and there are plenty of slugs and worms to feast on.

Rats are good climbers, but if you buy a "shepherd's crook" type feeder, you can attach a squirrel baffle (a large upturned perspex hemisphere) to the pole, which will deter rats as well as squirrels from climbing up to the feeder.

Some food will inevitably fall onto the ground and is usually eaten by ground feeding birds such as robins, blackbirds etc, but if the rat is snaffling it first you could possibly hang a flat table-style feeder below your hanging feeder (but above the squirrel baffle) to catch the crumbs. Hopefully your rat will then decide there isn't enough food in your garden and move on.

Alternative solution: load up your feeder and invite a Jack Russell terrier to stay for a few days!

"Squirrel proof" bird feeders are in fact mostly rat proof. We've pretty much eliminated the problem by switching to squirrel proof feeders for everything. The only "ground" feeding I do is a small amount I know the birds will get through that day, and it's not on the ground.

This year we also have the excellent help of a brace of pheasants who hoover up anything that falls to the ground. Can recommend.

https://www.coolings.co.uk/shop/products/jacobi-squirrel-slinky.html. this has been particularly good on the old pole feeders

I had a bird feeder similar to this hanging from a pole. Whilst on the phone to my DM saw a rat sitting in the feeder, just about managed not to scream down the phone to my DM!

Don't feed the birds anymore 😢

It would be much better to stop putting bird food out and improve the habitat with more trees/bushes/flowers/weeds/undergrowth/ponds etc. Bird feeding encourages pests and mostly benefits common & successful bird species at the expense of rarer ones which get outcompeted for food and nest sites.

I have been wondering this. New garden il slowly populating with bird friendly plants. Have a particularly lovely blackbird I'm v fond of though....

We stopped feeding the birds when we looked out to see our hanging bird feeders wriggling with two or three rats clinging on. They were hanging on a tree branch as far from the trunk and the wall as possible but they managed to get up there.

Only noticed rats in our garden when our neighbours got chickens. We all have small gardens in a typical new build housing estate. Had fed the birds previously with no sign of rats but since the chickens arrived the rats were frequent visitors to our bird feeders

I put bread high in a shrub for the birds I saw a rat stand up against the stem and shake the bush.