Shutting down the feeder. (1 Viewer)

Despite feeding birds now for over 10 years, I am faced with a shut down situation. The Roof Rats are too numerous. They love the bird seed. If anyone has idea how to feed the birds without problems, please let me know. The birds scratch the seed always leaving at least a small amount below. The Rats need water on a dailey basis with food, and in my yard is Italian Cypress trees, a pond and up till now... A bird feeder. The Doves I have fed nest two feet out our back door in hanging pots and on our front porch. We have been able to watch many families develop. There are many species that will now miss out. I have heard that Roof rats chew through electrial wires and have caused home fires. Really, I love the wildlife. What does one do?
Dave

Anything that is squirrel-proof should also be rat-proof.

Problem is, a lot of the gadgets that are advertised as squirrel-proof aren't!

I don't know whether you live in a city or in a more rural area, but have you tried calling your local Fish & Game office? They can frequently give you advice, if not hands-on help, with pest rodents.

I don't know how big roof rats are, but if they're eating your seed, have you tried setting cage-traps for them near the feeder? Or, if the rats are smaller than I'm envisioning and are actually in your attic, maybe setting smaller traps for them there would be even more effective.

You may also try a local Audubon chapter, see if they have any advice for you.

I wish I could be more helpful but I've never encountered this problem myself. But it does seem that you should try to rid yourself of the rodents, who've only recently invaded (correct?), rather than remove feed that is beneficial to critters you do want in your yard.

Keep us posted on what you decide to do and how it works for you, would you? It may help a lot of other BF members deal with similar situations. :t:

Katy Penland said:

I don't know whether you live in a city or in a more rural area, but have you tried calling your local Fish & Game office? They can frequently give you advice, if not hands-on help, with pest rodents.

I don't know how big roof rats are, but if they're eating your seed, have you tried setting cage-traps for them near the feeder? Or, if the rats are smaller than I'm envisioning and are actually in your attic, maybe setting smaller traps for them there would be even more effective.

You may also try a local Audubon chapter, see if they have any advice for you.

I wish I could be more helpful but I've never encountered this problem myself. But it does seem that you should try to rid yourself of the rodents, who've only recently invaded (correct?), rather than remove feed that is beneficial to critters you do want in your yard.

Keep us posted on what you decide to do and how it works for you, would you? It may help a lot of other BF members deal with similar situations. :t:

Click to expand...

Dave and Katy: Believe what you have are simply norway rats that use the utility wires as a freeway. Use the entrance wires to squeeze through the smallest opening into the crawl space under the roof. Hence they are called roof rats. Lots of insulsation there to make a cozy nest. Can you eliminate them, probably not, but you may be able to keep them under control. I lived in Orange county for 40 years and have no idea how many I trapped with common rat trap. Without the traps I could not have a garden. Please---do not try poison. Had a problem with pocket gophers at my cabin up on the Mojave Desert. Wiped out the gophers, but also wiped out two families of burrowing owls that ate the dead gophers.

Have not heard of norways shorting wires, but some rodents such as pack rats and kangaroo rats seem to like the plasticizer used in pvc insulation for some types of wiring ie. irrigation timers, 12 volt systems etc. I've had shorts there

Craig.

Thanks for the responses, some valuable info. I have had our Mosquito Vector people out and raged an intense war over these roof rats. Over 15 were removed. They tunneled into our back yard shed and I patched that up and cleaned up the mess. It has been a year since then and my shed is still safe. They destroyed much good backyard furniture and the like as I am told they constantly must chew to control their tooth growth. (thats scary) We live in a tract home area, but there are Almond orchards behind our house. (played a part in picking this home) I am going to give some thought to these squirrel safe feeders and the ideas in which all have conved. Thanks again, Dave

I also recently stopped feeding birds because of roof rats (this after waging a long and ultimately successful battle against marauding cats, leading me to be an occasional contributor to the never-ending "what do do about cats?" threads).

First of all, it's MUCH harder to make a feeder ratproof than squirrelproof. These rats are very agile and can engage in much more intricate maneuvers to get to a feeder than can squirrels. The best answer to "removing the feeders from the rats" is to take them down at night, which we actually did after a while.

HOWEVER, as long as there is any spilled seed this will keep the rats happy endlessly.

Second, the real issue with the rats isn't so much that they take gobs of food away from the birds, but that unlike squirrels, they choose to nest/sleep inside structures (i.e., our house). It's the potential damage they could do to our home in the form of chewing, pissing, etc., that was decisive. Also, of course, being good neighbors, we don't want to harbor rats that might also plague the people next door.

Previously, we had a rat control guy come out. He plugged up holes through which the rats were entering and exiting the house, and he did some trapping. But the truth is, as long as there is food easily available to them, these little critters will find a way to get into the house and establish nests there. To control them would mean practically endless trapping, something we don't really relish doing. I confess that I don't have any actual hatred of rats, having had the laboratory type as pets in the past. They actually are quite interesting creatures, in my view.

I don't really want to get into a "war against rats" that is never-ending just so we can continue to feed birds. So we just stopped, save for a single thistle feeder which we bring in at night.