5 gallon bucket feeder -- food mess on the ground?!

jmp-pdx

In the Brooder
6 Years
Mar 12, 2013
28
2
24
Lake Oswego, Oregon
So I made the horizontal bucket waterer (love it!) and the pvc feeder to hopefully make my life easier... but the birds are getting feed on the ground. I thought this was a 'no mess' feeder??
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I followed the instructions exactly. Is it perhaps the height of the bucket? One bird is much messier than the others (see pic) but I do see food flying out from all of them

 
I have a question about those feeders iwiw60. How much do you feed your chickens daily? I think I could fill one of those every time they emptied it and they would still eat like they haven't been fed in a week. I can't afford to feed them when they want to eat like that. I let them out to free range but they would rather eat the food than forage.
 
I have a question about those feeders iwiw60. How much do you feed your chickens daily? I think I could fill one of those every time they emptied it and they would still eat like they haven't been fed in a week. I can't afford to feed them when they want to eat like that. I let them out to free range but they would rather eat the food than forage.
I have 4 large-breed Black Australorp ladies. I don't 'feed' them a set amount daily. I just refill the tubes as needed. I go through a 40 lb. bag about every 2-1/2 to 3 months. They have their layer feed and oyster shell available 24/7. How many birds do you have?
 
I have 4 large-breed Black Australorp ladies. I don't 'feed' them a set amount daily. I just refill the tubes as needed. I go through a 40 lb. bag about every 2-1/2 to 3 months. They have their layer feed and oyster shell available 24/7. How many birds do you have?

We go through the 40# bag in about 3-4 days. We give them layer crumbles which has the calcium in it but we also have oyster shell for them. This past Friday we bought more layer crumbles only to find out when we got home that they were layer pellets. They seem to love the pellets more than they do the crumbles and I am wondering if it just might fill them up better than the crumbles and I'm sure the pellets won't make as big a mess as the chickens have been making with the crumbles. They prefer the feed to foraging and I don't know how to make them look for their own food. I am afraid that if they get too hungry, they will wander off too far and just not come back.

LOL Between the incubator hatching chicks, losing chicks to natural causes and a predator or two, I don't know how many I have. They don't all go into the coop at night. Some prefer to roost in the trees and some prefer to roost under the coop building. I'd say I'm close to 100 and like 98% are not adults yet. I have some that are just coming of age but not quite and after them the ages run anywhere from 2 weeks younger to a month younger and so on. I started out the year with 16 birds, that included 5 ducks and 2 roosters. My adult hen population has gone down to 3 EE hens and a Cornish Cross hen. I don't think my predators like duck meat, only one has vanished.

I took the caponing class this past weekend and plan on caponizing some of my young roosters towards the end of this week or maybe early next week. I may end up caponizing a few every week for 2 or 3 weeks and then waiting a while to do more. If I can catch the ones sleeping in the trees, maybe after I caponize them they will settle down and sleep in the coop. We are also adding onto the coop. We don't have enough room for all that we have, which is why I think the tree sleepers are sleeping in the trees.
 
We go through the 40# bag in about 3-4 days. We give them layer crumbles which has the calcium in it but we also have oyster shell for them. This past Friday we bought more layer crumbles only to find out when we got home that they were layer pellets. They seem to love the pellets more than they do the crumbles and I am wondering if it just might fill them up better than the crumbles and I'm sure the pellets won't make as big a mess as the chickens have been making with the crumbles. They prefer the feed to foraging and I don't know how to make them look for their own food. I am afraid that if they get too hungry, they will wander off too far and just not come back.

LOL Between the incubator hatching chicks, losing chicks to natural causes and a predator or two, I don't know how many I have. They don't all go into the coop at night. Some prefer to roost in the trees and some prefer to roost under the coop building. I'd say I'm close to 100 and like 98% are not adults yet. I have some that are just coming of age but not quite and after them the ages run anywhere from 2 weeks younger to a month younger and so on. I started out the year with 16 birds, that included 5 ducks and 2 roosters. My adult hen population has gone down to 3 EE hens and a Cornish Cross hen. I don't think my predators like duck meat, only one has vanished.

I took the caponing class this past weekend and plan on caponizing some of my young roosters towards the end of this week or maybe early next week. I may end up caponizing a few every week for 2 or 3 weeks and then waiting a while to do more. If I can catch the ones sleeping in the trees, maybe after I caponize them they will settle down and sleep in the coop. We are also adding onto the coop. We don't have enough room for all that we have, which is why I think the tree sleepers are sleeping in the trees.
Well......GOOD GAWD, GERTIE!! You have a massive flock, no wonder you're going through feed like crazy!!
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Are these 100 birds meat birds or all layers? You should be feeding your layers a good high-protein layer feed like you are, but your meat birds? They will need an even higher protein grower feed so you can plump them up and get to butchering. Speaking of which, instead of caponing those roos of yours why not send them to freezer camp instead?
 
Well......GOOD GAWD, GERTIE!! You have a massive flock, no wonder you're going through feed like crazy!!
lau.gif
Are these 100 birds meat birds or all layers? You should be feeding your layers a good high-protein layer feed like you are, but your meat birds? They will need an even higher protein grower feed so you can plump them up and get to butchering. Speaking of which, instead of caponing those roos of yours why not send them to freezer camp instead?

Actually, I started getting chickens for the eggs. I didn't know MamaBird was a meat chicken when I bought her. I just wanted big chickens. She's the only one her size but she has a son that has to be by my Welsummer because he has no poof on his head and my other rooster is a Crested Polish and there are lots of little poofed heads running around out there. Some have puffy cheeks too so they are from my EE hens and possibly from my SF that the predator got. My white rooster, Prince is so close to the size of his mother but he's still not quite that big. He seems to be build better than her too so I am hoping he doesn't waddle like she does.

Some will go to freezer camp but those that my CP fathered are not nearly as big as the ones my Welsummer fathered. They need to put on some weight. One of the reasons I wanted to caponize is because sometimes the capons will act as brooders for the little ones. That is my hope, to be able to put little ones out there and have the capons care for them like they were their mothers. I haven't done any yet so I don't know how true it is that they will cared for the little ones. It would sure make it easier on me. LOL

I have figured out this year that what I want are some LF Cochins or Giant Cochins but now have too many of the mixes and it's starting to bug my husband. I also have a few guineas and my ducks have babies, 8 of them, 4 almost adults and 4 younger. We also went to pick up some geese and more guineas this past weekend that were given to me. I can't in good consciousness go out and get the Cochins now with so many other birds. I bought 6 dozen eggs from Houndit but only 3 dozen made it and I have lost a few since then. Some are guineas and some are bantams and a few are Jaerhorns and some other breeds. I maybe selling the bantams, they are just too small. Well, I might keep the Red Cochins, they are cute. I had 5 more of my mixed chicks hatch and put them in with the bantams and they, newborn, are bigger than the bantams that are 3 weeks old.
 
I can see that you will have some serious thinking to do through the winter as to what type of birds and how many. Chicken math can get you every time, and with the cost of feeds what they are nowadays you will really need to re-think...I wish you all the very best!!
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I can see that you will have some serious thinking to do through the winter as to what type of birds and how many. Chicken math can get you every time, and with the cost of feeds what they are nowadays you will really need to re-think...I wish you all the very best!!
frow.gif

I had a half-way thought of letting the predators do it for me but I know they would take the ones I want to keep so I do have to work it out. I have the ones I want to keep for breeding for eggs to hatch and the mixes for eating eggs.
 

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