Thursday June 27, 2019 Guerneville CA.
Rodent problems
With all the new baby chicks, we’ve been spreading feed around on the pen floor and the result is the rodents are back eating feed the chicks don’t consume on the ground.
There’s about a dozen of them coming into the pen at night to eat feed.
Rodents
Here’s a few of them taken by my wireless camera I have in the pen. 
So this morning once I got it going with a cup of coffee and some eats I went out to get going on making a rodent proof feeder for the chicks and their mommas.
Building a rodent proof feeder
I started by cutting some wafer board for a top and bottom.
I cut some sides out of some redwood boards I had around and drilled and screwed them to the bottom to form this box.
I put the top on the box with hinges and I made a way for the hens to open the box in the morning when they get up.
Feeder tray
Here’s the somewhat finished feeder tray ready to be installed for testing.
This shows the unit with the top lid open on it’s hinges.
Installing the unit in the pen
Here it is set up in the chicks pen. I installed a empty paint can with weights in it and a pulley. My pulley is too small for the weight I have on it but will work until I get a larger one. You can see the paint can at the top.
Here’s Fluffy watching me.
Giant mouse trap
Dominique came by and said it looks like a big mouse trap. Yep.
How it works
My foot shows where the opener is that a chicken has to stand on to get the lid up in the morning.
When the chicken sands on the little tripper the weighted paint can pulls the lid up like this so the chickens can get at the feed. This tray is low enough to the ground that the small chicks can jump into it to feed and the tray keeps most of the feed from getting out on the ground.
Big balls
The round balls are deep sea fishing weights I’m using for weights to hold the box down and weight the can down too.
The rig is reset at night and is ready to go for when the chickens get up in the morning which is usually way before I do.
Needs some testing
I’ll be testing this out and then I will gave it a few coats of paint once I know all is good.
Actually to be a real rodent proof feeder the whole things should be made out of metal as rodent tend to eat through stuff, but I think the wood will do for now.
Living in my garage
I’ve also realized most of those rodent rats are living in my garage so I’ve put a wireless camera in their to check things out and will have to do something about them.
That project took up most of my day for a nice one. Weather’s perfect.