For my birthday, my wife gave me 4 mandarin for our lake. For hir birthday, she got two black swans. needless to say, we
love spending time at the lake watching these beautiful creatures. I built a feeder box for the swans very similar to the one shown
here . The swans have gotten used to the feeder, because I see them eating from it all the time & each morning it is empty.
Today I discovered that the little mandarins are hopping into the box and also eating the feed. That is perfectly OK with me, except for one (potential) problem. I am worried that the mandarin may be defecating in the feed. I have never seen any scat, but the tray is usually empty in the morning, so I am not 100% sure.
I was thinking of various ways to adapt the feeder, but don't want to do anything unless there is actually a problem.
Any fowl experts, please chime in.
(BTW, there are several nest boxes for the mandarin - they are using those fine.)
