Feeders

[lunkerchicken]

I am trying to figure out what kind of feeder I want to purchase next and thought you all could share your opinions with me! Right now, I am using a bucket with some holes cut in in the side - the bucket is only a gallon bucket. The feed gets everywhere! They fling it all over the place! Does anybody have a feeder that has worked great for them and minimized feed waste? Thanks.

 

[briteday]

We had some small outdoor garbage cans, I'm guessing in the 25 gallon range...and the bottoms were wearing a bit too much to use them for garbage hauling. I cleaned one of them carefully, drilled four 1" holes near the bottom on the side, used fender washers and short screws to attach one lid to the bottom of the bucket so that the lip of the lid would contain the food, and used another lid for the top. It easily holds 50 pounds of feed.

This method can attract rodents to your coop. So be sure to plug every nook and cranny where rodents can enter and monitor regularly. I have set a number of mouse traps around the coop where the birds cannot get to them and have yet (after 6 months) seen any evidence of rodents in the coop. I do sprinkle scratch in the run and have seen the girls chase down and consume mice out there. So I don't think that mice would stand a chance in the coop either! But I would rather not deal with rodent droppings while cleaning the coop.

 

[granmahen]

We have 5 hens and after trying out a five gal. bucket on top of a three inch deep, fourteen inch across cake pan (this did minimize waste on the ground but a couple hens were such pigs I went through too much feed in a month) we switched to a long skinny trough style that is suspended from roof of covered run (we have water but not food in coop). We bring out food twice a day, a.m. and then afternoon after free ranging for a couple of hours. They get 1/2 c. a.m. and 1/2 c. p.m. per hen , though I noticed they don't eat all their p.m. food if they found a lot of bugs while free ranging. I never see food on ground below trough. Added benefit, besides not wasting food is keeping such a close eye on the girls.

 

[lunkerchicken]

Thanks for the replies!