DIY Thread - Let's see your "Inventions".

[BReeder!]

Container:
Large covered, heated 35-50 gallon garbage can with lid. The Brute cans are great. Get it in black if possible to absorb extra heat from the sun.

Heater:
I would use a trough heater. If you are only working with <50 gallons it doesn't need to be a very powerful one. I'm sure you could find something in the 100W range that would work.

Pump:
A small pond pump should suffice.

Restricted Drinking Area/Plumbing:
I would plumb a PVC loop out and back into the grabage can. Cut the top of of a section of the PVC pipe (make it look like a gutter) for the birds to be able to drink the water.

The tricky part with assembly will be keeping the PVC loop above the water level in the garbage can. I picture two ways of doing it. 1: partially/mostly bury the garbage can (the ground would assist with insulating the garbage can, especially if part of it gets below the frost line. Backfilling around it can be a problem though with pressure on the garbage can). 2: the loop is in an elevated area about 4ft off the ground (this would work if you have a raised coop and place the garbage can outside and run the PVC through the coop wall).

Just realized how old that original post was...

 

[oldrooster]

Just realized how old that original post was...

This is why BYC does not usually delete threads, esp. ones like this, it can go dormant and be brought back to life and still be useful and added on to for informative content, others might get a comment that says something to the like of good job and be read by others where it may not be added to for content. but for applause in essence.

 

[bruceha2000]

True, plenty of good ideas in this thread.

 

[burbankchix]

This is the counter balance I built for my nest box lid. They get heavy if you shingle them. The white pvc pipe on the right is the weight and is filled with cement. I got lucky with my guess on size for this. When you lift the lid is stays where ever you put it!

Notice the cable that goes from the middle of the lid straight up to a pulley, then right to another pulley and then down to the large cement filled pvc weight. The weight is also on a guide wire the runs top to bottom on the right hand corner to keep it from swinging. If any one wants more detailed pics I have them.

This is awesome. I have 2 doors that equal about the same size as your one. I have one more idea to add; we have an old home with counter weighted window. In refurbishing some of them, we ended up with extra weights. If anyone has the same, they can be easily used to replace the pvc pipe—but that was excellent I must say!

 

[Celticdragonfly]

I love this Thread! My husband builds all kinds of stuff for me and I feel very lucky to be married to such a smart guy

I have these poop troughs in 2 of my bigger coops. They work so well and keep my coops clean for a long time. They have doors that I just park a wheelbarrow under outside the coop and push the poo out.

Some nesting boxes he made me for my BLRW coop

Some awesome feeders that hold 80 pounds of feed so I don't have to feed more then once a week. And the small one is for grit and oyster shell. I have a bunch of these type if feeders in all my coops


Heres the big one full of feed. I purchase locally made feed that comes in 80 pound bags so thats why he makes them this size, he even makes the bottom tapered so that the feed slides up.


Here he is making me another BIG coop a few summers ago.

Heres a latch that he made for my coop doors on my smaller breeder coop condo. Its hammered copper pipe that he brought home (free) and a BIG huge screw he also uses at work, and he ended up getting ride of the white pull handle an making a copper one to match. I should take a photo of the finished product its really nice looking! Almost a little to nice for chickens!!


Heres a chick brooder he made for me


And he put it on wheels so its easy to move.. I now hatch to many chicks for it so hes made me a bunch of different brooders using rabbit cages.




Theres so much more that hes made around here. He loves to make things for free and out of crazy stuff or build me something when we can't afford to buy it.

WOW! Great work, I love those feeders.

 

[aart]

WOW! Great work, I love those feeders.

The troughs on those feeders are too small(head room) and too full(billing out.
Check out @jthornton's bin feeder for a better design.

 

[mdquilts]

The troughs on those feeders are too small(head room) and too full(billing out.
Check out @jthornton's bin feeder for a better design.

How do I find his feeder design? I’m still figuring out navigation here! Thanks!

 

[Cluckingitup]

I just love many ideas on this thread! Took a few weeks to get through it all but it was worth it. Somewhere in here there were ideas to reuse feed bags in nesting boxes. I just cleaned my nesting boxes after about 2 months. I initially used base of pine needles from ground then pine shavings from store. (I got two 1 1/2 yr old chickens with a coop I bought- I am totally new to chickens) in the bottom of two nesting boxes there were a lot of little bugs/ants making it their home also. I sprayed with vinegar??, hoping this would deter little bugs. I am wondering if using the feed bags on bottom of the nesting box, as someone suggested, would retain moisture contributing to the bug issue. Or possibly retain heat since these two sleep in their boxes, this would be beneficial in winter I would guess. Between my dogs and chickens I have a lot of feed bags. I did reuse a 2 ltr bottle for Oyster shells, got the idea from here.

 

[aart]

I sprayed with vinegar??, hoping this would deter little bugs. I am wondering if using the feed bags on bottom of the nesting box, as someone suggested, would retain moisture contributing to the bug issue

Not sure the vinegar will help, but the residual feed on the bags could in fact be drawing ants and other 'bugs'.

 

[jthornton]

How do I find his feeder design? I’m still figuring out navigation here! Thanks!

Click on the search forum button, put a search term like feeder, click in user and start typing in jthornton and in a few seconds click on it then click on the magnify glass search button.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/feeder-build.1208719/#post-19208078

JT