[SallyintNorth]

I am hoping someone can help come up with a solution to a dilemma facing my mother.

She loves to feed the birds in her garden and watch them.

However, between pheasants, pigeons, squirrels and rats, she's just about ready to give up.

She's had a live squirrel trap before, but isn't keen on that again, because it means calling their neighbour to come and deal with the squirrel (or rat.)

They've recently had to use poison to get rid of a rat which had discovered the free food, and she doesn't want to have to use poison again.

Any ideas or helpful advice?

[oor wullie]

As long as they can get at the food they will always come so some kind of feeder that hangs in a way that makes it inaccessible to the pests (although I recognise that not much will stop a squirrel but at least pheasants and rats should be excluded).  That won't stop some spilling on the ground but at least would reduce the problem.  Whatever happens don't feed on the ground.

Be careful with peanuts.  Back when I was a student I had a summer job with the council pest control, they occasionally had real problems with rats as the antidote to rat poison is found in peanuts.  Rats would munch a bellyful of poisoned grain then eat some peanuts which would render the poison into a nutritious meal.  The main source of peanuts was of course people feeding birds (usually the same people who had called to complain about the rats).

[Fleecewife]

Hi Sally.  You haven't said what your Mum's feeding system is.  We used to have a tall round stob with a cross piece at the top and feeders hanging from that.  The rats loved it    They shimmied up the pole with no problems, but it made them stand out well for taking aim with an air rifle.  We covered a couple of feet of the pole with manky grease, which deterred them a bit, as rats are surprisingly fastidious and don't like getting their feet greasy.  Now we have a metal pole, purpose bought from Dobbies, with curly sticky out bits at the top and both peanut and seed feeders hanging from those arms.  The seed feeder is the type with a large saucer stuck to the bottom so in theory the birds don't scatter the seed over the edge.  That bit doesn't work so we do get seed on the ground, but most of it is eaten by ground feeders such as yellow hammers, howling doos (collared doves, beautiful but they do screech), hungry blackbirds, pheasants etc.  I suspect the mice also crawl out of the foundations of the house to munch at night, but we've seen no sign of rats.  Your Mum already has the rats though so they would still visit but as long as the pole is well away from walls, overhanging trees and so on, they shouldn't be able to get up there.  The same might apply to squirrels.

Peanuts must always be fed from a mesh feeder, as birds have been known the choke on whole nuts spread on the ground or on a flat birdtable. You can get feeders for peanuts which keep the squirrels out, supposedly - worth a try?  Or just give up and enjoy feeding whatever arrives?

How to stop the birds scattering the seed over the edge of the saucer I really don't know.  Ungrateful little $@@$
All I can think of for that is to have concrete under the feeder so your Mum can sweep up at dusk.

[SallyintNorth]

Thanks FW and oor willie.  I'm going to copy those to Mum and see what she thinks.  It may take a few days.... I'll send an email to Dad, he'll eventually check his emails and print it out for Mum, she'll write a response longhand, he'll scan it and send it back to me as an attachment, I'll type a précis back on here...  don't we have an AgedP emotiwotsit?!   

[farmvet]

You could just put the feeders out for a few hours a day, and likewise just ground/low table feed enough that will be cleared away quickly. The birds are used to getting fed at yours so i'm sure you will still get most coming. A shallow bird bath eg paint tray is always a good draw too,

[Penninehillbilly]

We have the type you put fat balls in, and wired a plastic dish to the base, a bit deeper than the saucers, water drains through the holes we made for the wire. seems to have stopped a lot of the bits. I've stopped using the seed feeders because of vermin, but I do sprinkle some on the hen hut roof when it's bad weather, but clear away any left late afternoon.
But I also love the pheasants, not many round here, we have a few getting very tame because we feed them while the weather is bad, gorgeous patterns close up, and such bonny heads.

[Mammyshaz]

My parents have the same problem. I don't think there is a solution    some of the birds are so choosy that they fling the unwanted seeds onto the ground. The poles holding the fat balls are used as shimmies for the rats.  There are two very large ones visiting my parents daily, morning noon and night. It's hilarious watching my dad fly out of the conservatory door every time he spots one, flinging a large pebble from his 'rat deterring' pile at the door      I was banging on the window at one on Wednesday lunchtime and it totally ignored me. They are so desensitised to people that they wait until they hear the pebbles in the air before moving undercover 
 The old traditional method of fatballs and coconuts on a washing line may work but not if it is rotary. The rats can climb them! Sorry, not much help 

[SallyintNorth]

I think I'll copy her the other replies and see if there's anything she fancies trying, MS!  But she could be in the same situation - they have livery stables behind them, some chickens nearby, horses fed hay in the field to the front...  there will be rats, no matter what she does.  And as you say, the birds seem to be able to afford to be choosy and scatter what they don't want.

[Buttermilk]

No answer but I once spent a good hour watching a rat and a squirrel try to feed at the same time.  The first I saw the squirrel was falling from the peanut feeder onto the rat which was hoovering up underneath.  They had a spat and both ran away, only to come back and the squirrel climb up the pole (metal) onto the feeder and start sliding down as it was eating, falling onto the rat again.  This must have happened half a dozen times with the fights getting more viscious each time.  They were scared of each other and the dance as they tried to reach the food without the other one was really funny to watch.

[SallyintNorth]

Mum says thank you all so much for all your replies and thoughts - and she's still chuckling over your post, Juliet! 

The birds won't starve as there are plenty of other food sources around for them, so she thinks she'll maybe try to get the robin a bit tamer so she can feed him (or her) when s/he shows up.  At the moment, as soon as Mum opens the door, the bird flies off, and isn't reliably coming back to take any food she throws out for it.  When the weather is a little kinder, she can maybe sit outside and get the robin used to her. 

We used to go to a café in Exmoor where the small birds would, if you didn't chase them away, come and hop about on the picnic tables pinching crumbs of scones and tea cakes.  And Dad says he's known of a robin would peck at a gardener to get him to get back to his digging!  lol

[Fleecewife]

My grandparents loved the birds and red squirrels.  They had a bird table butting up against the windowsill, with their breakfast table just inside.  They would have the window open at breakfast time and encouraged the birds to hop indoors, which they did, squirrel too.  Just begging for zoonoses, but they were fit as fiddles and the whole thing made them so happy.  I can remember as a very small child watching in awe as robins and blue tits hopped in and sat on granddad's finger  oops no, not that one  , this one  

[trish.farm]

Feed the birds, shoot the squirrels!  I spend far too much time sat at my bathroom window with the air rifle.  22 squirrels last winter, already up to 24 this winter!!  I live right on the edge of our woods so have a constant supply of squirrels, drives me mad seeing them eating all my bird food!!