That $200 'premium' bird feeder that raccoons destroyed in one night

I bought this fancy metal bird feeder from a catalog for like $200 because it said it was 'critter proof'. First night out in my backyard in Portland, a raccoon climbed the pole, broke the latch, and ripped the whole thing down. I lost the feeder and the bag of seed I just filled it with, so that's $230 down the drain. Has anyone else found a feeder that actually stops those little bandits?

3 comments

3 Comments

dixon.james8d ago

Wait, you had a different take on those high priced feeders before? I used to think spending big money meant you were getting something built different, but after my neighbor dropped $300 on a "raccoon proof" hopper and watched it get pried open in twenty minutes, I started to question it. Now I just use a simple metal tube feeder with a baffle that slides down the pole, cost me forty bucks total and its been up for two years. The raccoons still try but that baffle just dumps them off when they climb up to it.

michaelgrant9d ago

Man that sucks! It feels like everything nowadays is marketed as "premium" or "guaranteed" but its all just a way to get you to spend more money without actually fixing the problem. Ive noticed this pattern everywhere from kitchen gadgets to car parts. Companies slap a high price tag on something and call it "heavy duty" but really they just recycled the same old design and added a fancy handle or something. The raccoons probably had a good laugh though. Honestly the only thing Ive seen work is those metal cages with a spring loaded door that you hang from a wire. Still not perfect but way cheaper than that $200 trap.

west.casey9d ago

Honestly I gotta push back on the "recycled design" thing because some of those higher priced traps actually use thicker metal that lasts way longer.