Feeding Ideas?

[Kylling]

Recently, my family and I have decided to switch from manually feeding our chickens to leaving food out for them to eat in, say, a trough. I was wondering if anyone had any helpful ideas for the best way to do this. We have had a major problem with rats in the past, and don't want them to come back, so an open food source probably wouldn't be the best idea. I've seen other ways of feeding chickens with dispensers, but don't know if I have the time or money to make those.

Any ideas would be helpful, and anyone else who's looking for suggestions, as well, is willing to wait with me in this thread.

 

[boskelli1571]

Recently, my family and I have decided to switch from manually feeding our chickens to leaving food out for them to eat in, say, a trough. I was wondering if anyone had any helpful ideas for the best way to do this. We have had a major problem with rats in the past, and don't want them to come back, so an open food source probably wouldn't be the best idea. I've seen other ways of feeding chickens with dispensers, but don't know if I have the time or money to make those.

Any ideas would be helpful, and anyone else who's looking for suggestions, as well, is willing to wait with me in this thread.

The large plastic hanging feeders work well for me. I leave them up all the time inside the coop - I know people advise against this, but I have not had any recent problem with vermin. I use Tomcat enclosed bait stations in side the coop to deter vermin - seems to work just fine. Other people may recommend a weight activated feeding system. The hen stands on the board and the feeder opens up. I would imagine this would work well in an outside situation.