....or is DH? bird food and rats

[Clarella]

DH keeps getting his knickers in a twist about bird food encouraging rats. Obviously, yes the odd mouse or rat might partake, but does it warrant trying to put a coconut feeder in difficult to reach places or not out at all?

I'd love an actual bird table but I think he'd have a daily annurism anurrism anourism heart attack.

(To be fair, I think he has a mild phobia after experiencing a rat getting into his old flat and having to clear up a load of mess under the bath. However, rats are everywhere. This house is fine. And I had a pet rat so kind of a bit more bomb proof. Obv I don't want them in, but I do want to feed the birds.)

I have an open feeder and scatter seeds on it and around it (some birds only feed from ground) - and feed in morning before work - all the seeds are gone by the time I leave the house 30-40 min later. The birds learn quickly and are waiting :-)

Well, I don't really care about the rat or nutria that's on the picture. What I'd be wondering is how you can lift and hold 25 pounds with 3 fingers only without even your fingers showing strain.
He must be good with photo apps.

It's ok. The bbc have informed me via a different app that this photo is a case of forced perspective. The rat is closer to the camera than it should be. So looks huge.

Sanchar, this is what I feel. The birds have been pretty savvy at clearing everything up.

Just make sure your 'squirrel-proof' feeders really are squirrel-proof.

Mine wasn't..

Aw clever fellow!

Mangy foxes? 😡, I hate the way that it's seen as lovely to feed birds but foxes are scum that dare to try to survive in an environment that we built on.

We normally leave left-over hard bread outside for crows and other birds. They always scoop it out fairly quickly. I have two cats but so far no problems, seems to be good for the birds as it keeps the rodent competition out.

We live in one of a cluster of houses in a rural area. We all feed the birds and don't have a rat problem. There are plenty of hunting birds around though, what is your area like for kestrels, owls etc? If there are plenty I'd keep feeding them.

Leaving the food in anything other than a mouse unfriendly container however is essentially inviting them round for dinner.

Peaceandlove, They do actually have mange. I was being descriptive.

I feed my birds every day and I have a family of crows who wait patiently in the morning for whatever I chuck to them! I also have a rat - think it's in the compost bin but honestly - I'd rather have the rat than kill it and have some poor unsuspecting bird eat it when it's dead and then it too would die. For this reason I also don't use slug pellets. I'm not convinced the rat is doing any harm and we have plenty of kestrels, sparrowhawks and cats round here. If they can't catch the fecker then it's welcome to live!

I know that foxes have mange, I support a charity who helps them, it's appallingly painful and a horrific way to die.

I agree Theduchess , I won't use poison as its a very slow death and also it gets eaten by other wildlife or owls etc eat the poisoned rat. Terrier etc is much quicker and safer. I don't mind my rats really.

My neighbors used to feed the birds, until a bloody horde of rats moved in and the council told them to stop putting food out. (we used to watch all the clever and creative ways they would climb up the feeders)

Of course, they still keep coming now that the food is gone, because they apparently smell their old runs. So most of the spring will be spent baiting and the summer will be spent disposing of corpses. There are droppings all over in the shed, so we had to bin all my kid's outdoor toys :(

We got rats. First thing the environmental health officer did was go round to neighbours and speak to them about their bird feeder. They said bird feeders = rat infestations.

Good Luck.

I only ever see rats dead, close to dying or at different stages of being eaten. I can safely say that cats love eating their paws first (not sure why, maybe it's a delicacy like frog legs for us) and hate the guts. I don't understand why people use bait if cats are a much safer and better way to dispose of rodents without poisoning the wildlife. I know there's the funny story doing the rounds about awful cats being responsible for birds dying out (that's because they don't die when they smash their heads against glass panes or when they are hit by a car or when they eat poisoned grain and other bait left for rodents or poisoned rodents themselves) but I think it's Rentokill and other deratisation companies spreading the lie.

My elderly and rather nutty parents live in a house at the end of a lane, surrounded by immense trees. It's like some sort of damp and darker version of Narnia (with fewer fauns and more hedgehogs). They are OBSESSED with feeding animals (my brother has an animal feed business, so they get a lot of free stuff), but they operate some sort of awful policy on 'worthy' animals/birds vs 'unworthy' ones.

For example, they LOVE red squirrels, but they HATE grey squirrels (enough to support people shooting them).

They have robins and chaffinches that are tame enough to eat from their hands, but actively scare off crows because 'they are bullies'.

And yes, having all that birdfood (and the millions of other bits of junk and odd plants and damp leaves) all over the place does indeed attract rats. I once went out of their house and came face to face with a rat. It was sitting on a bird table at eye level. It was honestly about the size of a bulldog and looked like a cross between Phil Mitchell and a corgi, but with a long, scaly tail. For what seemed like about a minute we just stared into each other's eyes, before the rat fled. I think I may also have wet myself a little.

Anyway, I digress. The point is, I can say for certain that bird food does indeed attract rats. I assume that if you put out just a little, though, the birds will eat it and rats won't appear. I suppose there must be some sort of tipping point in the birds v rats graph where the rats start seeing your garden as the place to be on a Friday night, but my parents are so far off the scale, I'm not certain where that is.

Anyway, you'll not be surprised to learn that rats are firmly on my parents' 'unworthy' list. And yet they don't see that they're playing an active part in it.

Mind you, my mother (who turns 86 this year) did once say to me: "I'm not really afraid of getting dementia, I'm more afraid that I might already have it but I've not noticed".

I hope this helps.

I am 100% with your husband on this one.

I had a couple of bird tables which were well stocked with food, and attracted lots of variety of garden birds, and I actually enjoyed watching the squirrels too (not as much as the dog enjoyed chasing them though)..

One morning I was sat gazing out at the squirrel, when I noticed it had a bald tail.. so did its' mate who was sharing breakfast with him... after a few moments of thinking "awwww... I realised it was actually a pair of happily dining rats...

Let the dog loose (a staffy who should have the instinct to catch a rat .. or so I assumed).. and he sat on the decking (which I should add had been providing luxury accomodation for the "bald squirrels" too it later transpired), and he sat there, with a daft grin, wagging his tail and let them get on with it..

Bird table was swiftly removed. Decking too.

I love a story that ends with decking being removed. Warms the cockles.

We had to stop feeding the birds for about 6 months due to ratty visitors. The bird table came back out when the weather got really cold and no rats so far. We are making sure to not put too much food out at any one time so the birds eat it all up before any rats can get a look in, a small mug-full. The birds are lovely and the collared doves are so friendly, they fly down to the table as soon as they see me through the window and if the table is empty they stare at me until I put food out, bless them :-)

Eeeek I hadn't even considered this. I have fat ball and seed holders hanging high uo in the blossom tree in the front garden and the birds love us; any crumbs dropped on the garden don't last long.. Have never spotted a rat (or squirrel) ever.

Mind you we live in suburbia, and it's cat central round here so that's hopefully why. Are rats less likely to clamber up trees and nibble on fat balls? I have no idea of ratty habits so please excuse my ignorance.

We have bird feeders that attach onto glass and hold fat balls and bird seed. No issue with any getting dropped or any other animals being able to get to them, other than robins, hedge sparrows, starlings etc. I'll find you a link, op.

Meripac Complete Window Feeder www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0012UUXRW/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awd_Ab04wbCR4S43Z

Bird food brings in the rats in our rural garden, despite dogs being around. So I've stopped feeding again after the rat path became clear in the grass.
Ps, it's aneurism (I think)