s/o Children Loving Nature--Birdfeeders

[Brooketopia]

A lot of people mention getting birdfeeders as a way to lure more wildlife to your backyard, and I totally agree.

 

However, I heard that having birdfeeders up invites mice and rats to target your house and property.

 

Any experiences with this? We have the occasional mouse find his way in and I hate the experience of exterminating them and cleaning up all their wastes.

[Ravin]

I don't see why it would. Hang them in the trees, and not from your patio. We don't have a seed feeder, but we do have a hummingbird feeder which DD bought with her birthday money. The most I would be concerned about with that is that if it spills much, it could attract ants...but ants happen in AZ no matter what you do, really.

[Perry]

We have lots of bird feeders and haven't had a pest problem.

 

Several years ago we stored the bird feed in its original bag in the garage. That was a mistake. Mice chewed right through the bag and we ended up with a family of mice living in the garage that winter. We now store it in a heavy plastic covered container and haven't had any further problems.

[Jean in Newcastle]

Never had a problem. But then we have a cat too.

[Tap]

We haven't had a problem either. The feeder is in a tree. I buy the bird seed at Costco because it comes in a sturdy cardboard container with a flip top. It makes it much easier to keep the mess down.

[dirty ethel rackham]

We have bird feeders - seed and hummingbird styles. It did not attract pests to our yard, except squirrels, who were already there. We did find that we had to be more careful about how we stored the seed in the garage.

 

We have worked hard at outsmarting the squirrels. They are very resourceful and like to hog the birdseed. We tried putting it on a shepherd's hook and greasing the pole. It was quite funny to watch the teamwork approach. They would take turns trying to get up the pole. Eventually, they rubbed off most of the grease and were able to get to the feeder. We finally bought a feeder that was spring loaded so that they weight of the squirrels closes off the openings, but the birds are light enough that they don't trigger the closing mechanism. It was fun to watch the juveniles who hadn't been through a season try and try to outsmart it:).

 

Oh, if you live in bear country, hummingbird feeders attract bears. When we were on vacation in the Rockies, the manager of the place we were staying forgot to remove the feeders at night. He got pictures of the bears drinking the sugar water:).

[6packofun]

Yes, we had a few mice attracted to the corn cobs (for squirrels) and our sunflower seeds when I didn't have them sealed up tight in good containers! LOL I used no-kill traps and transferred the little critters to a field. hehe

[Michelle T]

It's a very common problem with bird feeders. Rodents have no problem generally in getting to the feeder itself, or else they feed on all the seed that invariably falls out and lays on the ground underneath.

 

I now keep just one platform feeder. Each morning, I put a handful of food in it, and the birds easily finish it off before afternoon. That way, there isn't food sitting in the feeder overnight, when the rodents are likeliest to roam. This has solved most of the problem, although there is still some seed that scatters on the ground.

Michelle T