Feeders and waterers for larger flocks?

[Collieoftheborder]

How big of a feeders and waterer do I need for 30 large hens? I am not against filling daily or every other day.

I want the Premier 1 all season waterer with built in heater but it's only 3 gallons. Do I need 2?

Planning to use the PVC pipe gravity DIY feeder and making 4 of them. Is that enough for 30 hens?

What do you use? Specifically those of you with larger flocks! There is lots of info for those with little flocks of 5 birds or so but I'm having a hard time finding ideas for flocks closer to 30.

 

[Al Gerhart]

You should feed 7.5 pounds of feed per day. Try to use at least three feeders as far apart as possible and out of line of sight to reduce competition. The PVC feeders will work just fine until you build up a rodent problem.

I have no idea how much a 4" pvc pipe holds per foot of run, used to use them until I built treadle feeders. I'd guess two pounds per foot of run? So a single 4' of pipe x three should do you. Just weigh the feed and watch the consumption, when it starts to rise more than 7.5 pounds per day you got a problem with something stealing your feed. A standard 33 pound treadle feeder would feed 30 birds for four days.

 

[Collieoftheborder]

You should feed 7.5 pounds of feed per day. Try to use at least three feeders as far apart as possible and out of line of sight to reduce competition. The PVC feeders will work just fine until you build up a rodent problem.

I have no idea how much a 4" pvc pipe holds per foot of run, used to use them until I built treadle feeders. I'd guess two pounds per foot of run? So a single 4' of pipe x three should do you. Just weigh the feed and watch the consumption, when it starts to rise more than 7.5 pounds per day you got a problem with something stealing your feed. A standard 33 pound treadle feeder would feed 30 birds for four days.

This is the style I'm going to make. That way I can add caps onto the bottoms at night so rodents can't get to it. My husband and I own a plumbing business so I can make lots of these if need be.

 

[Al Gerhart]

Those won't stop the rodents at all. They will just eat during the day or chew through the plastic to get to the feed. I used those and got overran by rats back in 2011. Which led to me developing the treadle feeder. Back then, you either bought a crappy $50 wood version off Amazon or you paid close to $300 for the Grandpa feeder. We started off at $50 for a better wood feeder which slowly transformed into a part metal part wood feeder, then into an all wood feeder that sold for $65.00 for quite a few years until Covid hit. All developed right here on BYC with feedback from the members.

 

[Collieoftheborder]

Those won't stop the rodents at all. They will just eat during the day or chew through the plastic to get to the feed. I used those and got overran by rats back in 2011. Which led to me developing the treadle feeder. Back then, you either bought a crappy $50 wood version off Amazon or you paid close to $300 for the Grandpa feeder. We started off at $50 for a better wood feeder which slowly transformed into a part metal part wood feeder, then into an all wood feeder that sold for $65.00 for quite a few years until Covid hit. All developed right here on BYC with feedback from the members.

What feeder do you recommend?

Edit:
I found the website. So for 30 birds how many do you recommend? 2 medium? 2 xl? 3 small?

 

[AinaWGSD]

We have a flock of 40 out at the farm and went with the overez 12 gallon waterer. We swapped out the nipple waterer for cups (personal preference) but will probably replace them for winter. It has a spot in the lid that allows for power cord for a stock tank de-icer for winter time watering. It seems like we've been refilling it about every 4-5 days even with this heat wave.

For feeders we have several options. One is the large galvanized hanging feeder. I think it holds 20lbs of pellets, but we generally don't keep it full. We also feed fermented feed, which we offer in plastic troughs that we bought online. Those have holes on either end and we hang them from bungie straps. We have 4 troughs, 2 is enough to hold the fermented feed and when they're empty we often put the all flock pellets (one large soop ea) in them to give them more feeding stations. Then we also have several 1 gal rubber bowls that we sometimes use for pellets. With large flocks its especially helpful to have multiple feeders that are nowhere near each other.