I make sure they have more than enough of their fill in the morning, which should last them to late afternoon..... then a few hours before they go to bed I load them up again. Seems to be working fine. Trust me, if I could do the feeder route I would, but it is not possible with my open setup due to squirrels fitting through the fencing and basically birds of all feather flying in for an all you can eat buffet.
I changed from crumbles to pellets awhile ago the chickens didn’t even notice and there is so much less waste there is SO much dust in crumbles with the cost of feed lately I think pellets are more food for your money
This is the feeder I'm using for three 12 week old chickens, hanging at their chest height, with crumble:
And dang if they don't knock it around, send it swinging, eat like animals (oh, wait...) and knock at least a third if not more of the feed all over the bottom of the coop.
I tried fermenting feed for a while, but it's too much daily work, and it kept molding.
I've got 50 lbs of crumble to go through before I can switch to pellets I suppose, but I don't like the idea of pellets, it just seems so...boring and rabbit foodish. And will they work with this feeder? Will they still be knocked around?
And why don't they eat that dang crumble off the floor before heading back to the feeder? (Because they aren't intelligent humans, I know, it was rhetorical, lol.)
I hate all this waste!
Any suggestions?
As others have said I went on YouTube and made pvc pipe gravity feeders and they worked great until my dear husband decided to “help” and changed the end part where the curve is. He thought some might fall outThis is the feeder I'm using for three 12 week old chickens, hanging at their chest height, with crumble:
And dang if they don't knock it around, send it swinging, eat like animals (oh, wait...) and knock at least a third if not more of the feed all over the bottom of the coop.
I tried fermenting feed for a while, but it's too much daily work, and it kept molding.
I've got 50 lbs of crumble to go through before I can switch to pellets I suppose, but I don't like the idea of pellets, it just seems so...boring and rabbit foodish. And will they work with this feeder? Will they still be knocked around?
And why don't they eat that dang crumble off the floor before heading back to the feeder? (Because they aren't intelligent humans, I know, it was rhetorical, lol.)
I hate all this waste!
Any suggestions?
now the feed won’t move down right, he “ de-gravitated it so I’m going to have to fix them . I also made two of the no waste feed inserts off Amazon and bought 2 rectangle totes with lids that clamp on the inserts comes with the tool that goes on your drill that looks like what you wiould use to install a door knob. I tried the 5 gal bucket but they wouldn’t tighten right. The totes are translucent so they can see the feed on the sides where inserts are not. At first they kept pecking and couldn’t get the feed. We kept showing them finely one of our pullets named Doodle figured it out and the others followed. They were funny at first trying to figure it out. I also a gravity waterer I ordered the cups that do not have the nipples they need to hit. Some of the pullets just couldn’t figure out the other one I made with the nipples in the cup. Both are made out of 5 gal buckets. I also have one of each of the reg. Waterers and feeders you hand or sit on bricks. I put all these out to prevent any squabbling since I have both groups getting along fairly good. The smaller ones are still not totally comfortable but they are working it out. Sorry this turned into a book, thanks for reading all this and thanks for all the knowledge you have shared with me to have gotten my chickens and I this far.
