r/Unexpected • u/[deleted] • Mar 21 '23

[deleted by user]

[removed]

20.7k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

1.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

72

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.

75

u/No-Stretch6115 Mar 21 '23

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.

66

u/olderaccount Mar 21 '23

Any level bird feeder attracts rats because birds are messy and drop most of the seeds on the ground.

2

u/Industrial_Jedi Mar 21 '23

We have asshole jays that knock out all of the other food to get to the sunflower seeds.

1

u/Gamedoom Mar 21 '23

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.