[Anke]

I have been thinking about these for a while.... but not sure if the large crows we have around here wouldn't be bright enough to work in pairs (and anyway the most annoying is that they go inside the house and steal the eggs from the nests!))... 100quid takes a few eggs to sell....

[lord flynn]

[size=78%] We have just built a Trigger Happy feeder unit which is a lot cheaper and just as effective.[/size]

I bought two of these a while back but not put them into use yet. How are you finding it? I think the crows would work it out but the birds wouldn't be able to use it. Might be useful for the duck house which has a sparrow problem, but not a crow problem!


I am wary of the grandpa feeders-my Marsh Daisies are not a lot (if any) smaller than the local crow/raven population. I also once bought a Bec feeder and the damn thing was awful-am sure it works fine in completely dry environments but in wind and wet, no chance-and no way of cleaning it, just horrid, so am wary of spending a lot of money.

[chrismahon]

They can be pretty simple Lord Flynn- but I decided to push the boat out and built a frame from aluminium sections held together with greenhouse bolts. Our tub has a cone in it so feed doesn't go stale. I added extra weight to the trigger using lead free solder wire and put a cork on the end so the target is bigger. Height is important and the hole size is critical. At the recommended 20mm ours kept jamming up but at 21mm it is perfect. However I recon that if it was half a mm bigger it would just empty itself, so pellet consistency is important. Their suggestion of a shallow bowl underneath didn't work for us as our cock kept tipping it up, so we used a rubber car mat which works very well. They eat every last bit up before hitting the trigger again, so nothing there for the sparrows. It took ages to build the first one but I will simplify the frame for the second one and not bother with the cone in the tub, just stir the feed when I refill it. You could just suspend a tub with string  under a shelter in its simplest form.

[LouiseG]

We have one and it's brilliant. Lots of friends have commented on it. It does everything it says on the box, it's waterproof, jackdaw, rat and pigeon proof and the chickens have no problems with it. The bantam in the original post i'm sure would soon learn that if you get on the treadle at the same time as a bigger chicken then you get to eat as well. Ours often has 3 hens all eating at the same time first thing in the morning.


Would highly recommend them although I agree they are expensive.