Neighbour excessively feeding birds

Grenage

Davesnave wrote: »

We grow a lot of plants for the birds, but restrict feeding them to the times when they benefit. Water is the most important thing to most of our wild visitors at this time of year.

Aye; we dug a pond - it's in constant use by birds and wasps.

borkid

A couple of cats maybe

Mojisola

gettingtheresometime wrote: »

Thinking of loaves of bread daily together with fat balls etc & you get the picture.

If the neighbour knew that feeding so much bread could be harming the birds, would he/she change to better bird food that could be kept away from the rats?

"Although bread isn't harmful to birds, try not to offer it in large quantities, since its nutritional value is relatively low. A bird that is on a diet of predominantly, or only bread, can suffer from serious vitamin deficiencies, or starve."
https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/advice/how-you-can-help-birds/feeding-birds/safe-food-for-birds/household-scraps-for-birds

Freecall

Have you considered a shotgun? That should do it.

Even if you are not a particularly good shot, hitting one neighbour shouldn't be that difficult.

:rotfl::rotfl:

Cakeguts

We had a neighbour who threw out food left overs. However when I was in the garden one day I found the hole that the rats had chewed in the fence in order to get into their garden. Our garden had turned into a rat run where the rats that lived under sheds in the garden of the neighbours the other side ran across it to get to their dinner. We know that they were not in our garden because we had called out the Pied Piper of our council.



I told the neighbour that he was getting rats in his garden due to his actions and they stopped doing it.

MEM62

gettingtheresometime wrote: »

Is there any thing else we can try to stop the feeding before such a drastic step is taken?

A couple of cats?

gettingtheresometime

I did suggest cats but was dismissed as she didn't fancy the thought of them leaving presents (dead or alive especially rats) being left.

bouicca21

In my somewhat limited experience it was the fatballs that attracted the rats as bits always ended up falling to the ground. Once we stopped using fatballs and ensured that the patriarchal Samuel Whiskers clone was removed the rest of his family also disappeared. Presumably they went back to the garden several doors up where the owner fed the sort of vermin that have bushy tails and reddish fur.

Rosieandjim

Maybe if you mentioned in passing the amount of rats you have seen feeding in their garden it would maybe deter them.


Are you/your relative on speaking terms with these neighbours?

scottiescott

A cat won't tackle a rat. It's a terrier dog you need for that.