Need input on home made wall hanging feeder.....Updated with photo of completed project

We have been searching on this site and doing lots of reading about the feeders that our chicks will need when they are full grown.  We have decided to build one that hangs on the wall (hubby is a carpenter, so building something is just a matter of telling him what I want).

We are going with the basic idea of a pink one in the Learning Center Homemade Feeders and Waterers area (sorry, I don't remember who posted it).http://www.backyardchickens.com/a/homemade-wood-chicken-feeder  We are going to make some changes to it to fit our needs.

Here is what we know so far....

  - it will hang on the wall

  - it will have 3 or 4 divided areas in it (food, oyster shell and grit)

  - it will have the food area recessed in so that the chickens can not roost on it

  - the top will be slanted, so no roosting on top

  - we know we will have to adjust the height according to their growth

  - we are going to put some plexiglass windows so we can see the level of feed

Here are our questions...

  - we have almost 60 chickens, we have read that we need to have 1" - 1.5" of eating space per bird, is this enough?

  - we have read that we should have two feeders, so that the lower pecking order chickens can get up there and eat also - if we have one long feeder and seperate the food in to two areas with just the grit and oyster shell areas in between would this be enough division?  hmmmm...I'm not describing it well, am I?  If there is a "box" (box being the feeder) hanging on the wall, can we have food at one end, grit and oyster shell in the middle and then more food on the other end, would that be enough space?  The box may be up to 4 fee long or longer.  kind of like this http://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/free_choice_wall_feeder.html

What do you think?  What are we not thinking about?  What else do we need to know?

THANKS!!!

Quote:

Originally Posted by galanie 

In my experience 1" a bird isn't really enough space once they get some size to them because their bodies have to go someplace and you have to allow for that.

That is exactly my concern, but somewhere I read to have about 1" - 1.5" of space per bird.  And also to have enough space for 1/2 of your flock to eat at one time.  So I guess we were thinking that the feeder will be about 4 feet long and that would leave enough space for the oyster shell and the grit.

We also want this feeder to hold at least a full bag of food if not more so that they don't run out so quickly.  Our 8 year old son says these are his chickens and it is his responsibility to take care of them.  We are about 4 weeks in to this adventure and he is still saying that, but mom and dad and doing a lot of the feeding and watering also.  We just don't want the birds to run out because our 8 year old didn't realize how much food they would eat that day.

Hubby is always up for a good challenge so I think he wants to build it all in one.  We have one open wall in the coop on the East that is about 16 feet long (though some of that will be taken up with roosts from the North wall), so space should not be a problem.

Chickens are so much fun!!!  I really appreciate the knowledge that I have gained from everyone on this site that is so willing to share their prior experience.  I have no doubt that our experience so far has been easy because of the knowledge we have gained.  Many THANKS!!!

Well, here it is......we are pleased with it and the chicks are too.  We hung it a little bit high on the wall, but we have put some 2x4 boards on the floor for them to stand on for now (not shown in this photo).  We will raise it as needed for their growth.

So, what do you think?