Garden store for chicken feed and supplies

[kamoshika]

Hi,

Were looking to get some sort of garden store to keep our chicken feed and supplies in, as we could do with the space in the house that they take up at the moment. I realise they need to be in something that rats aren't going to be get (or gnaw their way!) into, so was looking for something metal. I've found this: http://www.gardenbuildingsdirect.co.uk/Metal-Storage/Trimetals-Sentinal-Storage-Unit/16869 which looks great (we had one of their bike stores at a previous house, so know they're good quality) but £300 seems ridiculous for something to keep chicken food in! Has anyone got any suggestions for alternatives that will protect from vermin and weather without costing a fortune, or is it just a bad idea?

Thanks!

 

[Marigold]

I think the best way to prevent rats getting to the feed is to keep it in metal dustbins. The store you are thinking about looks fine, but you could get a small wooden shed for that price and gain more easily accessible space, with room for one or two metal dustbins and some shelves as well.The feed wouldn't get wet when you opened it up, either.Get some paving slabs and line the floor with them, then there will be no possibility that rats will chew their way in. You might find some odd or chipped slabs at a builders merchant, very cheap. I once kept bird seed in a plastic bin in a wooden floored shed and a rat chewed through the floor and into the bin, so I changed my arrangements!

 

[rick]

I had a pot of seed I would FIP into when in the shed as a treat but last time I put my hand inside only got a handful of mouse droppings! I need a metal container!

 

[kamoshika]

Hi Marigold. Thanks for the reply. To be honest we don't want anything much bigger than the store I'd found. We've not really got space or need for a shed in the garden, we just wanted to get the chook's food out of the house. I'm probably over-thinking it and should just buy a metal dustbin and put a brick on top of it to stop the lid blowing off

 

[Marigold]

Well, that's fine- but even a metal bin would best be kept under cover, I think, as if feed gets damp at all, it will go mouldy and be wasted, or else be bad for the birds if offered to them. Maybe you could find a similar store, only plastic and thus cheaper? I've got a big plastic box with a hinged lid I used on my allotment for years and have now had here at home for another 15 years, storing tarpaulins etc, and it's still waterproof. I think the metal storage containers like you found are so expensive because they offer more security as well as waterproofing and you don't really need that.

Something like this, maybe, for £99.49?
http://www.gardenbuildingsdirect.co.uk/Plastic-Storage/Keter-Woodland-30-Plastic-Garden-Storage-Box/22728

 

[valeriebutterley]

Reading this post makes me thankful that I do not seem to have rats!
My thick plastic storage bins large and small have never attracted rats, mice yes, but the cat presents me with fewer and fewer these days for which I am grateful, come to think of it, have not had one on the back doormat for weeks.
So maybe Boris has done his work very thoroughly!
Hope all my invisible friends out there on GCF are well and keep all the news of theirs and their girls and boys doings and welfare coming!
I have my first ever "children" from my LC cuckoo Pierre and his ladies, all of them are gorgeous, I seem even to have a buff cuckoo type amongst them I have two lovely boys, and 3 lovely girls, the boys are ad. on Omlette for £5, but if anyone on here wants them, they are welcome to them.
Wish everyone a very merry Christmas and a happy prosperous new year, also their girls of course.