The Nuttery feeders on 'Dragon's Den' (2 Viewers)

[NoSpringChicken]

I was surprised to see the MD of The Nuttery bird feeders company seeking investment in his products on 'Dragon's Den' last night. The company was started by his father 20 years ago and I have seen their products for sale in several garden centres. I am more used to seeing new products and companies featured on the programme. During the Dragons' interrogation of the poor gentleman it transpired that the business has been making a loss in many of the past few years and the patent on their squirrel proof system runs out in two years. Unsurprisingly, he didn't end up getting any investment from the Dragons.

However, there is no such thing as bad publicity and, on looking at The Nuttery website today, I see that they have a feature about the programme and I am sure that the exposure on television can only help their sales. They also have some special offers on the site

I also discovered that they manufacture the Egg pottery feeder. I saw one of these in the Minsmere shop when they were first introduced. The staff there were trying to work out how to dismantle it for refilling and were having considerable difficulties with it. I am glad he didn't present one of those to the Dragons for inspection.

The Nuttery website is here:
http://www.thenuttery.com/index.aspx?c=15e96872-5cc4-4503-9a90-62ee61714c6e

Ron

 

[Kits]

I didn't see the programme but was interested, and surprised, that an established company was allowed to tout for investment. Like you, I have seen their products are in all the garden centres round here. We do have a couple of their squirrel proof feeders - and they do work!

 

[julester]

I was the Nuttery man on Dragons Den!

Hi all,

It was I that took the decision to go on Dragons Den.....regretably, what you see is a 10 minutes edit of my 1 hr + time in the 'den'. Without it sounding like an advert, there is an interview with me at www.thenuttery.com about the show and it is also being repeated around about now on BBC 2. Happy to answer any questions you may have. You call also follow me on twitter @thenutteryuk

 

[Terazed]

Nuttery Globe Feeder

I recently purchased one of your globe feeders at a local hardware store. It does prevent grey squirrels from accessing the seed, but red squirrels seem to enjoy it well enough. It also prevents the larger cavity nesters, like Nuthatches and mature Woodpeckers from feeding, but Chickadees use it happily.

My question is about cleaning. There are screws on the bottom that I thought would allow me to take the feeder apart for cleaning. However, the screws are so tightly inserted that I can't remove them and one has stripped as a result of trying to loosen it.

I've emailed your company twice for instructions about this problem, but haven't received any reply. It's been about two weeks since I began contacting your company. I paid $70 Cdn plus tax for the feeder and I hope that I won't have to buy special equipment for cleaning it or taking it apart.

Please advise.

Tera

 

[bongofury]

I have seen these feeders on sale at many places, but like Terazed, it hasn't been clear in the shop how to dismantle the feeders to clean them. Given the rise of disease in Greenfinches recently and the constant advice to keep feeders clean, I now only buy feeders that are easy to clean with no nooks and crannies that can't be reached. Other manufacturers have realised this and it might be useul for your compnay to also do this to succeed.

Another suggestion would be to develop a squirrel proof nijer seed feeder. The squirrels in my garden have taken to nijer as they can't get at anything else. I have found a good Chapelwood one which is succeeding so far, but I don't rate its chances. If there was a caged nijer feeder, I'd snap it up.