How to make a rat proof chicken feeder

I suppose it’s inevitable, with one of the longest and most severe Winters for many years, that the local rat population is going to get more desperate and brazen in finding food. But it was a bit of a shock when I popped up to the allotment mid morning last week to find two large specimens helping themselves to the chicken feed.
 
I’d naively thought suspending the feeding globe between some sticks would put them off. Silly me. If they’re desperate rats will overcome most obstacles. Tried moving the feeder and suspending it higher but another morning visit a couple of days later and there they were again!
 
So after a bit of consultation with fellow allotmenteers (Ray and Julian) here’s the plan of my rat proof (unless they go bionic) chicken feeder (click to enlarge). It’s rat proof for two reasons…
 
1. Because this time the feeder is suspended well away from any supports, and
 
2. If the pests climb up the support and down the wire (difficult!) they’ll have to climb upside down to get around the drip tray held half way down the wire.
A couple of comments about the design…
  • I was lucky enough to have some aluminium greenhouse supports with grooves and holes in them to easily attach the springy bit and wire… if you have to use wooden supports it might be helpful to make grooves to more securely tie other parts
  • I was also fortunate to have some softer aluminium for the springy bit, which joins the upright to the cross beam… in fact I initially made the construction without the stiff cross support, only to find when I attached a full feed holder it hit the ground; springy water piping will also do the job, though you may find inserting some holes in the piping will again help to tie it securely to other parts
  • The wire to the left of the plan is used to adjust the height of the feeder
  • The most difficult part to sort was the plant pot drip tray… it’s obviously no use putting the wire straight through it since the tray just flops about; you have to feed the wire through a washer (I used a door hinge ‘cause that’s what I had to hand), then in and out of the tray edge (I heated up a narrow screw driver to more easily make holes for the wire) and finally back to the middle, through the washer and down to the feeder; there’s a photo of this arrangement below
  • Ideally use aluminium wire… you can use string or twine but the rats may gnaw through that
  • The feeder I use is a globe bird feeder with the feeder holes enlarged and smoothed so the chickens’ combs don’t get damaged, to see an example click here. You can use something as simple as a string plastic carton with appropriate holes cut in it
More photos below showing my own effort, which I’m rather proud of and think looks more than a little space age.
 
Sister in law Trudy and niece Sarah came for a visit last week. She’d been putting off the trip from Cheltenham since Christmas for fear of being caught by the snow… not only was it blizzard conditions on her way to St Ives, but on the morning she went back it started snowing heavily again! Trudy thought she may be carrying her own little snow cloud around with her. Moral to the tale… don’t go on holiday the same time as Trudy!
 
Disaster on the competitions front with sons David and John. On Sunday grabbed defeat from the jaws of victory in the pool/darts competition… lost on the decider having led David all evening (John couldn’t make it, his new girlfriend Sam had tired him out!). Then on Tuesday lost the first quarter’s squash competition to David with a month still to play. When the pressure was on I played like a wuss, so didn’t deserve any better. Is this the onset of old age and tiddlywinks looming? I’ve already got my set of bowls and flat shoes in the garage for when more sedate sports are required (sadly I’m not joking). At least I’m still pitch and putt champion.
 
John moves out again a week today. Motivation seems to be his getting a new girlfriend and wanting a parrot, though not sure who’s top in the pecking order. Surely his new room isn’t as small as he says (2 metres by 2 metres!). He’ll never shoehorn all his stuff in there… I doubt if his wide screen telly will fit in without scraping both walls. And there’s no chance his king sized bed will squeeze in, so it’ll remain stored in the garage.
 
Got a couple of weeks off on holiday now, aiming to break the back of the remaining digging on the plot. That’s after I’ve finished constructing my first bee hive compost bin… more to follow on that next week. Oh, and next Wednesday me and my two sons are going to watch England’s last football match at Wembley before the World Cup, against Egypt, preceded by a few visits to interesting and ancient London pubs. So lots to see in next week’s post!


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Allotment newsletter

newsletter 01

Lots of huffing and puffing, scribbling & formatting over the last week in an effort to get the winter issue of the allotment association newsletter published… was at risk of transforming into a spring issue if left any longer. Finally got a small rush of articles from association members, enough to fill four pages. In fact I actually had one too many, so that’s saved for the spring issue. To view a copy of the newsletter click here, go to the Committee tab & see the section on newsletters towards the end of the page.

Sister in law Trudy and niece Sarah are with us for a few days, so got to be on my best behaviour. Arrived with enough luggage for a six month stay, and Trudy is enthusiastic about the apple wine to the extent that we finished off a bottle between us last night while we all watched The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Second time I’d seen the film and liked it again… I really appreciate films that make you think. Not being a spring chicken any longer, was pondering what the experience would be like of being an old mind in a young body when the two sisters got to work on the wonky logic of the film. Completely passed me by… if he started as an old baby he should have finished as a young grown up, not gone back to being a baby again. Better not try any more of my favourite films on them.

At last finished digging one side of the front allotment plot, now on to the other side! Arrived yesterday to surprise two rats helping themselves to chicken feed from the suspended plastic globe I thought would deter them. Ugh! One was pretty big and had to climb half way up the chicken coop wire netting before he could squeeze through to next door’s allotment and the safety of a wood pile. Moved the feeder to the other side of the coop and increased its height a little… see if that does the job. Looked up rat proof chicken feeders, but they’re all more than £30 so not economical for my four feathered fiends.

No photos this week…sorry, but weather been grey and miserable and nothing worth flashing at.

 

Here comes the sun

 

Sun03 For the first time this year, in fact for several months, I felt the magical warmth of the sun. There’s been little enough sunshine recently… nothing but rain, more rain and, oh, just for a change, some snow. So when the sun did make one of its rare appearances for a short period this week it was even more surprising to feel heat.

In reality our sun is nothing special. Officially it’s a yellow G2 dwarf, an average middle aged star even though it contains 99.8% of all matter in our solar system. No reason to get excited about the middle aged bit… it’s got about five billion years to go yet and is now in its most stable phase.

Just one of billions, our sun is special for us because it’s the perfect size, perfect age, perfect distance, perfect temperature and perfect brightness for life to exist on a planet like Earth. But we won’t actually last the full term of five billion years… the sun will expand as it gets older, engulfing Mercury and Venus. Earth might survive that stage, though not for long. The sun will then contract to a fraction of its current size, and fridge salesmen will be redundant.

Light as well as heat has been exercising my mind this week. I’ve set up some propagation trays on the study windowsill, with only two occupied at present by tomato seeds and broad beans. Seedlings for both have made an appearance so the battle now is to ensure enough light to stop them getting too leggy. There’s a halogen light in the garage which would give off really bright light as well as warmth, but I can’t figure out a way to set it up with the approval of the domestic executive. Just have to see how the current set up goes for the time being.

Having already mentioned the amount of rain we’ve had you’d think it would be obvious the ground would be slightly damp. But that didn’t stop son David and me having the first pitch and putt match since early December. Boy, was it wet! The golf balls kept embedding themselves in the green and we both came off after almost two hours with soggy feet. Not to be deterred, the following morning I took grandsons Connor and Sammy to the local sports field for a game of football… and couldn’t find a single dry patch anywhere! See photos below.

Had a quarterly Hill Rise Allotment Association event on Sunday… Bob Lever, ex-commercial nursery manager and member of the East of England Orchards project gave advice on maintaining fruit trees, including a demonstration on how to graft one type of apple on to another. Bob takes cuttings of heritage or unnamed or unusual apple varieties to graft on his orchard, thereby preserving them. If you want to read Bob’s article on the Bramley orchards of Wisbech click here. Very informative and interesting, although after standing still for most of two hours I felt as cold as I ever have and could hardly speak when I got home.

No response from Halfords on my claim for £109 for the failed hub gear on my Pashley Sovereign bike, so they’ve now received my County Court claim, see copy below. Since I’ve sent them copies of emails from both Pashley as well as Sturmey Archer, the gear maker, stating the part should last the lifetime of the bike, and Halfords have confirmed the failure was not due to lack of maintenance, I don’t see how I can fail. Did someone say ‘famous last words’?

 

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The Great Communicator…

…revealed even he makes a slip when questioned about his interview with Fern Britton (click here to listen) at the Chilcot enquiry into the UK’s involvement in the Iraq war. Make your mind up about Tony Blair’s appearance… professional and polished, or slippery and evasive? But he did pose a very good question… what would the world be like in 2010 if he had not taken action?

History has demonstrated that appeasement doesn’t work with tyrants. The most infamous example was when Hitler demanded that a large part of Czechoslovakia be handed over to Germany, prompting Neville Chamberlain to press Britain’s ally to cede territory to their hostile neighbour. Chamberlain returned from negotiations claiming ‘Peace for our time’… having just agreed with France, Italy and Germany that there would be no intervention if Hitler invaded the Sudetenland. Of course it would have been inconvenient had Czechoslovakia been present at those discussions… they may have objected to an agreement they should give up their own land! Even on the eve of war Chamberlain tried to persuade Poland to give up part of their territory to Germany.

So it is a very good question… if no action had been taken in 2003 would the world be a worse place now? Personally I don’t think so… the monster that was Saddam Hussein was created with the support of the Arab states, the United States, the Soviet Union, and Europe… they financed and supported his war with Iran in the early 1980s resulting in half a million deaths. Iraq made extensive use of mustard gas with the knowledge of the United States, who gave additional support such as intelligence and equipment. Small wonder Iran today does not appreciate being lectured about nuclear weapons by the United States.

The subsequent invasion of Kuwait was driven amongst other things by Iraq’s £20billion debt to that country. Saddam Hussein would no doubt have gone on subjugating his people, no different from many other examples where the world takes no action, but he was created as an invader rather than having the aspirations.

What’s certain is the process to agree that the UK should go to war was seriously flawed. Taking the advice of special advisors, who’s independence has to be questioned when they were appointed by Blair, and neutering the Cabinet (who it could equally be argued had a vested interest in keeping their jobs), it seems the true and traditional independents of the Civil Service were ignored. It does appear Parliament was misled, when it had a right to believe due process had been followed and facts it based its judgements on were robust.

A good example of the paucity of backbone within the Cabinet was shown when Jack Straw, Foreign Secretary at the time, admitted that, with unequivocal advice ringing in his ears from his legal experts that the war was illegal and with grave doubts about going to war, he recognised that if he did not give support the war would not go ahead… but didn’t say a thing. Oh, and he never considered resigning!

All of which makes the weekly battle at Allotment Heaven pale into insignificance. But fight on I will! Been making very slow progress with the digging due to heavy frost. On the bright side there were three eggs waiting for me on Monday… the feathered fiends are responding to longer daylight and occasional milder weather.

The severe cold in January seems to have brought a number of birds not commonly seen hereabouts… redwing, fieldfare and  tufted duck, along with close up views of more common residents of the Ouse such as cormorant, crested grebe and jay.

Got all excited about starting seeds on the study window ledge in covered trays… imagined getting a really early start for my tomatoes. But reality soon set in. Yes, tomatoes can be started in January, but they need plenty of light to stop them getting leggy. So I’ve decided there’s no desperate rush for a week or so.

Made a good start on the February squash competition with a 3-1 win against son David. Need to win this month since, having narrowly lost January, if this month goes down the tubes I’ll have lost the quarter… I know, it sounds complicated but running the year’s competition on quarters is the only way I can make sure I’m still in with a chance right up to October. Pool and darts have gone in David’s favour with a 10, 7, 7 win against me and John, with John having won January. Avoided making quite so many brain numbing mistakes at pool for a change. Can’t wait for the wether to improve and pitch and putt to start.

Daughter Beth has made a good start at the Call Centre. Seems to be enjoying the job, and luckily the kids love the occasional visit to the kids club after school. Beth has a reputation within the family for sending things flying. Curtain rails have been known to fly off the wall, sliding doors to jump off their runners whenever Beth is in the vicinity. She doesn’t do things by half. So when a cup of coffee went flying off a desk at work I didn’t need to turn round to find out who the culprit was.

 

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