Resident Pests

We found that our chooks were going through their food rather quickly, and assumed that they were just rather hungry. We soon discovered that not only were we feeding our chooks, but also the neighbourhood birds as well. In particular, there's one type of bird that seems to be a frequent flyer to the chook pen. The birds come together in a pack and stalk out the pen before gorging themselves on the chook's food. Now, the girls just stand by, not seeming to mind all that much that their food was being eaten by these birds. I tried shouting and throwing things at them, but they kept coming back. I tried moving the food around the backyard, but they always found out where it was. I'm now at the point of confiscating the food during the day (it must be the teacher in me).

Here's one of the pesky birds, just about to start eating the chook food.

He's looking around, checking for danger. He looks shifty to me.

Here they are, caught in the act.

Any suggestions as to what we can do to stop them from eating the chook food?