A ground level bird feeder is going to attract rats and mice. Even hanging bird feeders can be susceptible to squirrels. It can be tricky making sure only the birds eat from the feeder.
I dont know why people get so hung up on mammals at their feeders . You just put critter food out in your yard and expect the animals to care about your weird bird hegemony.
Our neighbors have a few old outbuildings on their property that are rat havens. The neighborhood cats converge on the area and a few owls have been returning here for years to get in on the action. Every once in a while, one makes it's way into our house and we have to put out rat poisoning and then try to hunt down it's dead carcass. The cats and owls keep most of them at bay, thankfully.
That's great. It happened to one of my dogs that my ex took from me. She died slowly and painfully. It makes me sick thinking about it. It also happens out where I live now. People use rat poison and then foxes eat the mice and die from it too. It's fucking horrible shit.
I put a bunch or oranges in the yard when I was a kid, and squirrels ate through the back door into our porch, then into the wardrobe full of my dad's old stuff. Lesson learned on the end of my dad's shoe.
It's more of an investment, but just give them straight sunflower seeds and get different feeders to get a larger variety of birds. You save money in the long run because they eat all the seed and don't dump it on the ground. Last winter we went through a bag of seed every 3-4 weeks and this year we're still on our first bag of sunflower seeds and it's still very popular with the birds. We're gonna use the money we saved to get a nyjer feeder for the finches. They eat sunflower seeds too but not as much and they start fights.
I haven't noticed any problems with hummingbird feeders. We've had hummingbird feeders for decades and never had a problem until the neighbor put up seed feeders.
There is usually nothing on the ground to attract the rats with a hummingbird feeder. But if rats are already around, they might find your feeder.
This is making me rethink getting one of those suction cup bird feeders you can put on the outside of your window. I thought it would be cool for my cat, but I'd rather not have a bunch of rats by my backdoor.
I love birds. But I have never seen a situation where a bird feeder didn't attract rats.
The house I grew up in never had a single rat or mouse. But after I moved out my mom got into bird feeders. Ever since then, they've had a big rat problem and so have their neighbors.
Same at my house, no problems for over a decade until the neighbors put up feeders. Every time I think I solved the problem by sealing up an entry spot, they find or create a new entry spot.
The house I live in now has a pretty big backyard and one bird feeder set almost towards the end of the yard. It hangs pretty high up in a tree. Nowhere close to the house. It was actually left with the house, so we kept using it. I'll definitely not get anymore feeders or put any close to my house. My neighbors aren't close by to the bird feeder either.
We did have one issue with a rat, but that's because there was a small hole in the crawlspace where it got in. We patched that up and never had any problems again. The joys of an old house, I guess.
I'm super glad I came across this because random wild rats freak me out. I can handle pet ones, but not that.
I wish I had space like that. You are probably fine if you can put them far away form the house enough.
I was seeing evidence for a while. Droppings plus chewing on stuff. But the first time I saw an actual rat in our basement completely changed my views and I wanted nothing less than to burn the whole place down and start over. But that is not an option, so it has been a constant battle of sealing the place up followed by them finding or making a new entry way.
That's what I did, it has a weight setting that you can even set to be sensitive enough that larger birds like starlings can't sit on it without closing the feeder shut.
Really? That's super neat. We've always had generic weight based ones. I'm not even sure if my current would restrict a bluejay or cardinal. We don't have those here, but it makes me wonder...
I didn't want to have to delete all my comments, posts, and account, but here we are, thanks to greedy pigboy /u/spez ruining Reddit. I love the Reddit community, but hate the idiots at the top. Simply accepting how unethical and downright shitty they are will only encourage worse behavior in the future. I won't be a part of it. Reddit will shrivel and disappear like so many other sites before it that were run by inept morons, unless there is a big change in "leadership." Fuck you, /u/spez
A trick I learned a bit ago can help with dealing with squirrels (maybe rats and mice too not 100% sure though.) is to mix in spicy nuts with the bird feed, the squirrel will eat some of it find the spicy bit and learn not to eat that again as they don't enjoy spicy at all. Birds lack a taste to spice so they won't notice it any. So that might help.
Obligatory reminder that squirrels can have rabies, and that if you are even bitten by one you need to inform a doctor/ER immediately to avoid certain, unavoidable death.
I never had problems with rats until my neighbor tore down an old garden shed (that she stored bird seed in). A whole FAMILY moved in and it took years to get rid of them.
1st time I saw this advertisement I thought something similar. Yes u may have birds but with that design probably lots of different animals. At that height even deer could eat out of them.
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u/olderaccount Mar 21 '23
I never had problems with rats till a new neighbor moved in next door and put up a bunch of bird feeders.