10/31/2023 0 Comments Rodent proof chicken feederTreadle feeders stop anything but your chickens eating the feed! Most folks who keep chickens in their backyard have seen or had to deal with a rat issue. It’s a waste – it’s the time spent removing the moldy wet feed and the money it costs to replace it. Any ingress of water into chicken feed will ‘spoil it’ and it will go moldy very quickly.Ĭhickens can’t eat moldy food as it makes them sick, so all that feed that has got wet has to be thrown out. If you plan to keep the feeder outside or in any area where there is rain or snow, it has to be waterproof. They are automatic, just fill up and forget. It serves 3 main purposes to keep the feed dry, out of direct sunlight and to stop anything other than your chickens from eating the feed īut the treadle style also means you can fill it up and chickens just help themselves whenever they want. Good treadle feeders have side wall dividers stopping incorrect ‘side feeding’ an therefore any injury occurring. Will that chicken eating from the side be injured when the other chickens correctly feeding step off the treadle and the lid closes? No. What happens if chickens are feeding and a chicken tries to sneakily eat from the side whilst the lid is open. Only when there is no weight on the treadle i.e. What happens if there is another chicken on the treadle feeding and one jumps off, will that other chicken still feeding be harmed? No, as weight on the treadle will mean the lid remains open. Every part of the chicken is therefore well out of harm’s way by the time the lid actually closes. This won’t happen for a few reasons:įirstly the lid only closes after the chicken has step off and walked away. Initially the worry for most chickens owners is that their heads will be injured when the lid closes. But when there is food involved they are incentivized to learn and will learn quickly! Are treadle feeders dangerous? This motion can be unsettling and can take chickens a few attempts to get used to. What chickens using a treadle feeder can find difficult at first is the motion of the treadle moving downwards. She was more comfortable the second time and fed from it normally. I then took her off and straight away encouraged her back on to the treadle this time by herself. ![]() She saw the feed and I allowed her to feed a little from it. I did this by placing her on the treadle so she could see and feel how it works. *I had to manually show our Silkie how to operate it. Placing some treats into the feeder will help enormously. Next, remove the prop opening the lid, so the feeder functions normally again and allow them to begin exploring it again. Let them all feed from it, so they know where the feed is and that its safe. Generally the best way to ‘train’ chickens to use the treadle feeder is to start with the lip propped open. Do chickens need training to use a treadle feeder? The weight of young chicks isn’t sufficient to operate a treadle feeder. How many chickens can use a treadle feeder at once?Ģ-3 chickens can comfortably feed from a treadle feeder. ![]() The weight of one chicken is enough to operate a treadle feeder. Will a treadle feeder work with just 1 chicken? ![]() ![]() Treadle feeders are therefore totally rat proof as the rats aren’t heavy enough to operate the treadle. The principles of a treadle feeder are simple, it’s too keep the feed covered, making it accessible only to the chicken(s) using it. The bird can then happily feed, when it has finished feeding and steps off the treadle, the lid covering the feed tough closes. The bird walks onto the cantilevered treadle, the weight of the bird then pushes down that plate and this action opens the lid on the feed trough. How does a ‘step on’ treadle feeder work? Which is why people often then refer to treadle feeders as ‘step on’ feeders. A treadle just refers to the mechanism or lever that’s operated by foot.
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