Awesome, inspiring thread, thanks!
I'm planning to be out of town for almost a month in January, so I wanted a very large capacity feeder for my 10 birds - my son will check in on them while I'm gone, but once/week is a lot less imposition on him than every other day. I incorporated tips from this thread to build, basically, a double sided version. I built two, because my wife has another 24 chickens at her house (her son lives there and will do daily upkeep). One sheet of 1/2" plywood built each feeder, glue and staple assembly. Each unit stands 50" tall, on a 24"x18" footprint. I used plywood for all 4 sides, no Lexan, just for cost. For hers, I used a 12"x23" flat floor with a 45°(each side) diverter in the center. The side walls are 23"x36", set in 1.5" on each side between the 12"x48" end walls. The feed tray floor & diverter are positioned so there is a 1/2" gap between the side wall and the diverter face, and the outside of the feed tray is set with its top edge at the same height as the side wall bottom. The diverter is 10" wide at its bottom, so the slopes extend beyond the feed slot and into the tray area. The upper ends of the end walls were cut to 45° each side, and a roof/lid made from 2 pieces plywood (12"x25" & 11.5"x25"), lapped at 90° and glued/stapled to two of the end wall corner cuts. Our Dumor pellets fed nicely, the birds went right for them and didn't seem to have any problem with the 1.5" feed width (which is bigger than the metal hanging feeders they're used to).
I made a few changes for the second build - mainly I attached the end walls inside the side walls this time, and I eliminated the flat floor - instead I made the diverter bigger, extending it 2" past the side wall on each side. (this made a wider trough width, and lowered it a bit, in consideration to my two Bantys..) The feed gap is still 1/2". The outside of the feed troughs are glued/stapled at 90° to the diverter boards, wide enough to put their top edges at the same height as the side wall bottoms, and I also put a 1" wide wedge of plywood in the bottom of each trough. I built the lid as before. A couple of quick end caps for each trough, and a 6"x18" piece at the bottom of each end wall to secure the end caps and provide more stability (i set the top edge of these even with the trough top edge, marked and trimmed the end walls to 6" down (setting the trough height to 6" above the floor)) and it was done. I use crumble feed, and it fed nicely into the troughs, the birds had no trouble getting to it, and everyone seems happy.
The second design has a larger internal volume - I calculate it at about 5.2 cu ft - and I found a published value for chicken feed bulk density of about 36lb/ft3, which means this feeder should hold up to 200lb of feed.
I'll update this with photos and drawings in the next few days.. but overall, I'm very pleased with the results. Thanks again for the inspiration!
