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| Customer Reviews: | | Average Customer Review: ( 20 customer reviews )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
53 of 53 found the following review helpful:
 An improved version of an already good feeder Nov 27, 2005
By Richard Drdul
We have had the less expensive plastic version of this feeder for a few years. It has been a good feeder, but it's finally disintegrated. We bought the all-metal Champion feeder as a replacement. Duncraft has addressed all the design deficiencies of the previous plastic version:
- The mesh at the bottom of the unit is much smaller, so seeds won't fall through as easily. With the previous plastic version, we had to insert a piece of window screen material to keep seeds from falling through the larger holes in the mesh, and that meant one more item to clean.
- The white grid is now a one-piece epoxy-coated metal unit, and is more rigid than the previous two-piece metal and plastic grid. It can be cleaned easily with a bottle brush.
- The roof is metal, which will avoid the problem with the previous version of the roof cracking where the metal vertical supports were inserted, as well as avoid the problem of the plastic mottling and fading.
The bottom line is that this is an improved version of what was already a good feeder. We recommend it.
29 of 29 found the following review helpful:
I'm very happy with it! Mar 03, 2007
By J Bone
Squirrels have been a major nuisance to my bird feeding efforts. After a lot of trial and error and a small fortune spent on feeders, I have found several solutions. For woodpeckers and nuthatches, I use a wire cage suet feeder and buy only pure suet or hot pepper suet. The squirrels seem to leave them alone. For pine siskins and goldfinches, a nylon mesh "sock" style feeder with pure thistle seed works well. Squirrels have no use for the thistle. I have a wire mesh tube enclosed in a green metal cage, also manufactured by Duncraft, for black oil sunflower seeds which attracts a wide variety of birds and keeps out squirrels. The last feeder in my arsenal is the one you see here. Cardinals in particular like to feed from a platform or on the ground, and this feeder works well for that. When I fill it with sunflower seeds, the squirrels do their best to get at it but for the most part fail. I have gradually switched it over to safflower seed, which is great for the cardinals but seems to hold no interest for the squirrels at all. The empty shells do stay in the feeder, requiring periodic cleaning, but I find that a reasonable compromise. The construction is robust as well. I recommend it! I have two Duncraft products now and am happy with both.
23 of 23 found the following review helpful:
 Still Looking For the Perfect Feeder Mar 28, 2009
By ladyfingers
One of these days I'll find the perfect feeder. This one is not it. Having many type feeders in the yard, I thought I'd add one more platform style to appease cardinals. Almost two months later and still not one cardinal has used it. Mind you, I have a yard full of cardinals, but they don't go near that feeder. Squirrels can and do, although there is a limit as to just how much seed they can extract. Little birds use it too, but they use every other type feeder in the yard as well, and they weren't the reason I bought another feeder in the first place. So, both my reasons, to satisfy cardinals and keep out squirrels, failed. I wish I had never bought this expensive and hard to clean feeder. Update: I've now had this feeder almost eight months and still no cardinal usage. As a matter of fact, this feeder is used the least (by any birds) of the seven hanging around the yard.
23 of 23 found the following review helpful:
 Squirrel proof - yesiree! Sep 13, 2006
By Curious Wren
I was skeptical that the squirrels wouldn't be able to reach the seed below the screen with their paws, but indeed they cannot. So this is a rare item -- a platform feeder that allows cardinals and grosbeaks, but not squirrels. This feeder is well constructed, but the two small downsides are that it's time-consuming to dismantle to refill the seeds, and it only holds about a pound of seed, so you need to refill fairly often. I use sunflower and safflower seeds in mine. For a full review of this and other feeders, visit my feeder review blog - Curious Wren (dot com).
17 of 17 found the following review helpful:
solid feeder discourages but doesn't deter squirrels Sep 19, 2007
By Omar Siddique
I've been feeding birds for almost the last twenty years, and I've continued to look for the perfect feeder during that whole time. This sturdy all-metal feeder is close though not perfect. Most notably it doesn't actually deter squirrels entirely as advertised, but it DOES discourage them.
The feeder is very solidly constructed, very heavy, all-metal, and the hanging loop is just the right size to fit on the hook of my bird-feeding post, with the loop snug enough so local racoons can't pull it off. The design does not allow for a post-mount.
The design works by placing a metal grid over the sunflower seed (about an inch deep). You pour seed into the feeder, shift the grid around so it's sitting on top of the seed, and voila! The birds on top of the grid can put their beaks through to get seeds from the bottom of the feeder but squirrels can't quite reach the bottom with their little arms. Unless you overfill the feeder, in which case the squirrels can reach from the sides of the grid.
The problem that makes this feeder not truly squirrel-proof is that if a squirrel sits on one edge, the feeder tilts, the seed slides to that side, and the squirrel can now reach the heaped seed. My squirrels discovered this technique within just a few days.
Even so, the squirrels aren't able to get to ALL of the seed...just much of it. So it slows down your seed disappearing, and it is extra work for the squirrels, so they don't park on the feeder quite the way they would with an unprotected one. So squirrel-discouragement rather than squirrel-deterrence.
Note you can't put mixed seed in this feeder, it is designed for sunflower ONLY. Mixed seed quickly clogs the mesh bottom.
I give this 5 stars because it's a great feeder for sunflower, but solely as a squirrel-proof feeder, I'd give it only 3.5 stars. Recommended, but don't expect to defeat the squirrels; at best you'll slow them down.
See all 20 customer reviews on Amazon.com
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