My two girls (7 months old) seem to be emptying their hanging feeder onto the floor of their small coop. This started about a week ago. We raised the feeder a bit so it is about at their back level. The floor is very dry with loose dirt and pine shavings mixed in but I can see a lot of pellets under the feeder. They are out in the back yard several hours a day and they seem to be pecking from the ground in the coop but it makes me nervous not to see some food in the feeder. I have been putting a smaller amount in each evening so they will at least have a lot to eat in the morning. Any suggestions? Thanks!
Quote:Raise it higher! I know they say back, but mine kept on spilling, too. I raised it until they had to tip-toe just a teeny bit, and then it was all fine. Put a dish underneath to collect what they spill, and re-use it? That might work.
x's 2. I used to have the plastic hanging feeder and for some reason they seemed to toss alot of the feed out. I switched to the metal hanging feeder. It has a little bit of a lip on it and it seems they don't toss nearly as much out. Not sure if it's the feeder, or they just stopped flicking it out.
Thanks for the good advice - raise feeder, put a pan underneath, and try a metal feeder. I'll try them in that order!
It will also help to let them empty the feeder and make them clean up the spills before refilling. They won't starve!
what kind of feed? If it's not all uniform pellets or crumbles, they could be digging around trying to find the "preferred" pieces. I also second not filling it up till the ground is cleaned up. It really wont kill them to go half a day with an empty feeder if they have other options (free range or cleaning up spills)
I bought large rubber pans to go under my feeders (slightly larger than the feeder). They save a lot of money.
To slow down on wasted chicken feed, I placed two plastic oil change pans(new from Wally World @ $2.++ each), under a 5 gallon inverted water bottle that I fill about once a week. Here's the good part- inside this pan, I placed a wire LOOP about 3" high & just about 3/4 of the pan wall size. This stopped the chicks from crawling/pooping inside the pan, & also stopped a tremendous amount of waste. The pans are also elevated almost to thier neck level. Yes, they can stretch a bit to reach it, but if you baby sit the pans when you 1st install them, you'll soon come up w/the right elevation for it. I suspend the inverted bottles w/a medium duty chain, w/an open link so it hooks back into itself @ whatever elevation works best. Hopefully, pictures will be here to view what I'm referring to. If the pix do not post, contact me & I'll email you the pix.
