Designing and 3D printing feeders & accessories

[DonyaQuick]

I am way more excited about this one than I should be lol.

Feed scoop with lid to keep rain/snow out of it and a snap-fit hinge!

I might make a retro-fit version of this lid to work on my other scoops. Taking feed out in heavy rain/snow and trying to cover the top to stop it getting wet on the way has been a routine annoyance for me with the amount of precipitation my region gets; often not reasonable to just wait for it to let up and I have a decent walk out to my bachelor flock setup now.

 

[Patiocoturnix]

I am way more excited about this one than I should be lol.

Feed scoop with lid to keep rain/snow out of it and a snap-fit hinge!
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I might make a retro-fit version of this lid to work on my other scoops. Taking feed out in heavy rain/snow and trying to cover the top to stop it getting wet on the way has been a routine annoyance for me with the amount of precipitation my region gets; often not reasonable to just wait for it to let up and I have a decent walk out to my bachelor flock setup now.

Oooo I really like this one any chance you can share the files?

 

[DonyaQuick]

Oooo I really like this one any chance you can share the files?

Looks like I can't attach individual stls here, but I wonder if I can upload the set (2 files, base and lid) as a zip and not run into problems...experiment time! Let's see if this works.

Caveat: the scoop may be on the small side for some people's preferences. I have pretty small hands and sized it for myself. and it's probably about half the volume at default size of the normal 2lb feed scoops you find at feed stores. For scaling up the design, aside from possibly producing excessively thick walls, my main worry would be the snap-together hinge mechanism, which gets more rigid when larger and thus harder to snap together. However, I have tested the hinge mechanism by itself printed up to 50% bigger than it is on the default size of the scoop stls, so I think the scoop design could be safely scaled up to 50% bigger. Any bigger than that and the snap-together aspect may become difficult (ut 50% bigger is pretty big I think).

 

[DaveTecolote]

Very nice. I'd be proud to use those with my fowl.

 

[gr4yw0lf]

I just got a PLA filament printer and have started designing and making things I've wished I had for my chickens - specifically feeder-related things where I've found a distinct lack of simultaneous weather protection and compatibility with mature, standard-size roosters. I realize a lot of people do covered feeding stations to protect from weather but I haven't had a lot of luck with that (it turns into a roosting and pooping station). I thought I'd start a thread to share how things go as I try different designs with my various chickens.

This is my first design in action: a rooster-friendly grit holder with some weather protection to help keep out the torrential rains my area gets. Although you can't see it from the photo of the actual print, there are also small drainage holes in case something like snow/sleet manages to float around the edges and get in anyway and melt later. The only thing I wished I'd done differently with this one is to print it in white or clear since the solid gray PLA makes the contents dark. Fortunately Mr. Tengu here doesn't care about it being dark, but I have other chickens that would, so any subsequent prints I do of this design will be white/clear. Despite being dark, this grit holder has so far been a big improvement from just tossing the grit on the ground, in a bowl, or in the feed to be scattered and largly disappear and leave me not knowing if any is left. This should work well for my hens' oyster shell too.

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Next thing I'm working on is roo-friendly port feeders to pop onto an existing bin of some sort. I loved using port feeders for my hens way back before I had any roos, but the abundantly available ones are too small for my roos. DIY PVC pipe options I've looked into didn't really do what I wanted either. My first prototype is printing right now so I'll get to see soon if I can actually get the balance of features I'm after or if I'll just have another thing that enables my birds to make a huge mess LOL.

Great designs!! Have you looked into other filaments yet?? It is my understanding that PLA is susceptible to weather and heat due to its porous nature and low temp melting point. I bought a roll of PETG to try out myself.. but if these are working well for you maybe I don’t need to worry about it?

 

[DonyaQuick]

Great designs!! Have you looked into other filaments yet?? It is my understanding that PLA is susceptible to weather and heat due to its porous nature and low temp melting point. I bought a roll of PETG to try out myself.. but if these are working well for you maybe I don’t need to worry about it?

I will probably move to PETG eventually for the better UV resistance, but I have some things to sort out first, since I want a fume hood and extractor set up before switching materials.

Right now my printer is uncovered and on the floor near a window. To do the fume hood/case I need to get a proper table set up. I recently tried putting it up on a table like I use for my resin printers and it shook the prints right off the bed...so it's back on the floor for the moment while I figure out how to set up something sturdy enough to stop that from happening. Wet filament is also a real issue in my environment; I need something set up for filament drying or better storage of partially used reels before moving to PETG since I've read it takes on moisture somewhat faster than PLA.

 

[NorthwoodsChick]

A gasket can come from cutting up a cheap silicone mat.

Great idea

 

[DonyaQuick]

The feeder ports are needing a redraft because the CA glue failed completely on the PE part of my prototype before I could even test it with feed. Basically one little stay in the sun and the CA glue that was connected to PE shattered (PLA and glue on PLA parts are aboth still fine). Going to be trying this soon or a variation of it:

Unfortunately the move to double flanges and screws meant I can't keep the same shape back of the port and still have it print support free (unless I want to print the back half in two pieces and glue together...which I could, but glue is clearly an inferior thing to rely on).

So the redesigned back part of the port feeder from the quote above is a no-go. It printed mostly ok but had some major filament adhesion issues on the bottom of that ridge at the top. Tried fixing it with a soldering iron post-print but didn't get a solid enough surface to be content with it. A rooster might leave that issue alone since it would be hard for them to reach without bonking their combs but my hens would be able to easily pick at any poorly adhered filaments in that region. So, looks like I may be doing a hybrid approach after all. CA glue did work for PLA-to-PLA and held very strong, so....trying this now, since I have a working front piece.

Evidence of working front piece.

 

[TexasBlues]

Cool scoop w the lid.
It would be nice to have a feeding port that keeps food from getting raked out. My chickens will make a mess if I fill up their 5 gallon bucket w food.

 

[DonyaQuick]

Well, the slimmer, 2-piece back with flange is giving me a new kind of CA-fail grief I didn't have issues with on the original chunkier designs due to flange flex, CA brittleness, and lack of a way to clamp the parts during gluing to ensure large areas of adherence like I got on my original designs. I guess I should've gone chunky with that one instead of opting for a thinner flange (I was worried I wouldn't be able to get nylon screws long enough).

So...we shall see with this next. I'm printing a mini version of it right now to see if this weird snap fit plan here will even work.

Cool scoop w the lid.
It would be nice to have a feeding port that keeps food from getting raked out. My chickens will make a mess if I fill up their 5 gallon bucket w food.
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Since my rooster-friendly ports are bigger, smaller hens getting in there and raking food is a worry I have. I feel like it surely can't be worse than the open-to-bin thing I've got going on right now though.

The anti-digging issue is an interestingly complicated one when trying to accomodate roosters. A port is the first step but the issue is a bit broader. The traiditional anti-dig feeder is one of these blue thingies:

The small oval ports don't let a chicken foot in (for adult standards anyway; chicks can still dig) and the lip on the end stops raking backwards with the beak. It's been my experience that feeders with that general design are pretty good at containing feed for hens - they just have major weather-proofing issues. So why not put those little ovals inside a larger port to have the best of both worlds? It might actually work with hens, but it's this issue that sent me on the whole weird port design path. When the feed is far enough down that it stops the hens digging, my roos can't reach it due to the significantly smaller distance between their comb and beak tip when comparing birds with similar skull sizes.

The arrows are on the hen are marking nares center, end of comb, and beak tip. On the roo, the dashed arrow is noting where the end of comb would be if he were that hen. The roo in this example has about half the beak-dip distance as the that hen does. By the time the feeder sets the feed level low enough in those blue-style ones to stop hens throwing food out with their feet and beak, it actually stops my roos from getting food easily. This wasn't readly apparent to me until I tried using the blue-type feeders in a bachelor flock and suddenly saw near-zero feed consumption.

So it's an ongoing thing I'm trying to figure out - how to guard the exposed feed area to avoid rain/snow and stop digging while also making sure my roos don't get starved if the feed level is low. I'm optimistic I'll find some kind of middle ground, but it's also possible there isn't a good solution to accomodate big rooster faces while more solidly stopping hens from scattering the food just because of the difference in head shapes.