FLORIDA!!!!!ALWAYS SUNNY SIDE UP!!!

[cmom]

Quote:
That didn't work well for me either so I went back to the hanging feeders. This isn't the greatest picture but I measured out about 3 feet from the wall and made a bracket that has a hook to hang the feeders just above the back of the birds in all of my coops, this way they don't waste feed and I fill the feeders with pellets which lasts a few days. I have never had a mold or damp problem with the feed. You can see the in the top of the picture the bottom of the feeder and in the bottom of the picture the top of the feeder on the hook.

 

[welasharon]

I was just talking about my doubts about using these feeders here in Florida. I feed twice a day, morning and evening and it is an issue if I go out of town. I may be able to leave enough feed for two or three days...but I don't think may more would work. It doesn't take any time for maggots to pop up as moist as it is.

 

[MamaGallina3]

Soooo sad about this gravity feed situation! We like to go camping twice a year for about a week. My neighbor is scared of chickens too, so I can't count on her to feed them daily. Although, bless her heart she tried her best the last time we left town.

We do have hanging feeders, we switched to that after the maggot outbreak. I think one full feeder will last about three days. Maybe I can bribe someone else in the neighborhood with fresh eggs!

If anyone in FL has any other solutions I am all ears. I also saw this set up, and thought it would work for rain, but not humidity.

 

[DRGLENNON]

Question about automatic gravity chicken feeders in FL. We built one out of PVC while the girls were on "grower" feed. I think we installed it in June or July. There was enough feed in there to feed them for one week. Well, I noticed the the feed wouldn't fall through the PVC well. But if I pulled at the feed at the bottom, it would fall down. I attributed this to humidity,and the feed swelling with moisture. The other issue we noticed was rain. When it rained, some would collect at the bottom where the chickens were supposed to get their food. Then the feed would turn to mush. Well one day (warning this is super gross) I went out there and saw it was all mush again. So I grabbed a large serving spoon (which has since been thrown away) and started to scoop out the mush. Well I was greeted with maggots. The entire bottom portion was fulled with maggots. After clearing that out, I tried to get more feed to fall, and it too was filled with maggots. I had no more patience for the maggots, after filling an entire office sized garbage can with maggot feed. I left the rest to hubby. He said the entire feeder was filled with maggots. So we threw it all away. (I am sure someone will tell me that chickens love to eat maggot, but their were thousands! And these chickens are prissy!)
Hubby doesn't want to use the feeder again. Here is an example of what we had (from a website, we don't have pics of ours)


The end of ours is a little different.

Anyhow. My thoughts are that the type of feed we were using was not a good combo with this type of feeder b/c of the humidity. Plus if we had a way to shelter the end of the feeder so rain didn't collect we wouldn't get the maggot problem. Any suggestions or input??
Thanks!

I'm sorry you had this problem but thanks for the heads up. I was getting ready to try a similar feeder.

 

[seminolewind]

I think the worst smell in the world is wet feet after a few days. I think it smells worse than a dead animal. I had thrown some in the garbage can at my coop and as I dragged it across the yard,, and it leaked and the smell lasted for days. Sorry, I had to get the gross out.

I've never had a problem with dry feed going bad. Seems like maybe you are cleaning it out but some was still hiding.
I've never used your setup. What I did is for 6 years was the feed bowl was inside the coop. I've always used chamber pots, LOL. If they spill some, take the pot or feeder away and let them clean up what is on the floor. I've never found a waterproof feeder. One bowl is outside and put in a Rubbermaid storage container laying on it's side. That works pretty well. All my chickens live in pens under a tarp so the feed is protected.

With the chamber pots, the juveniles can be messy and spill grain, but the adults are good with it. I fill it halfway. There's a slight hourglass shape to it. If you go away, you can always use 2-3 pots to supply more food.

I wonder why it goes bad in the pvc pipe? Would it go bad if there was a tarp over it? Maybe it's too stagnant?

 

[Gingersnap722]

I think the worst smell in the world is wet feet after a few days. I think it smells worse than a dead animal. I had thrown some in the garbage can at my coop and as I dragged it across the yard,, and it leaked and the smell lasted for days. Sorry, I had to get the gross out.

I've never had a problem with dry feed going bad. Seems like maybe you are cleaning it out but some was still hiding.
I've never used your setup. What I did is for 6 years was the feed bowl was inside the coop. I've always used chamber pots, LOL. If they spill some, take the pot or feeder away and let them clean up what is on the floor. I've never found a waterproof feeder. One bowl is outside and put in a Rubbermaid storage container laying on it's side. That works pretty well. All my chickens live in pens under a tarp so the feed is protected.

With the chamber pots, the juveniles can be messy and spill grain, but the adults are good with it. I fill it halfway. There's a slight hourglass shape to it. If you go away, you can always use 2-3 pots to supply more food.

I wonder why it goes bad in the pvc pipe? Would it go bad if there was a tarp over it? Maybe it's too stagnant?

I'm sorry, but your first sentence made me laugh! I thought, what?? Then realized what you were talking about.

 

[cmom]

I did have some feed in a smaller hanging feeder that I had put a lid on to keep rain out. I had moved the birds but forgot about the feeder and even though it was inside a small open coop that is in a small enclosed pen, one day we got a driving rain from an unusual direction and some feed that was left in the feeder got wet. I had forgotten all about that feeder and after many days had gone by I went in to retrieve the feeder to put in my chick coop and found the smelly rotten moldy feed in the feeder that I had forgotten about. I took the feeder out into the field and dumped it out and then cleaned the feeder but feed was pretty smelly. My point is that the feeder was covered so that may have contributed to the problem as it didn't have any air flow.
This is a movable pen and before I moved the birds to another coop and pen. There is a tin roof over the top of the pen.

 

[GulfCoastChick]

We live in Sarasota and two years ago had Rhode Island Reds, a Barred Rock, and white silkies. We made a 4'x8'x4' hen house inside a screened run, all covered with roof shingles. Every morning I fed my girls from freshly washed cake pans and gave them treats in the same pans every afternoon. These pans were brought in and washed every night. Due to the problem of having night visitors - opossums, raccoons, fox, feral cats - I was forced to stay diligent. Needless-to-say, we never had bug or maggot problems.

Unfortunately, due to moving to another part of Sarasota, and taking care of an ailing relative, we had to give our girls to a local farmer.

We are now settled and ready for a new family of chickens but don't want to purchase again from the farm twenty miles south, so we need to know from all you folks where to purchase silkies and seramas.

Thanks,

Kathleen

 

[cmom]

We live in Sarasota and two years ago had Rhode Island Reds, a Barred Rock, and white silkies. We made a 4'x8'x4' hen house inside a screened run, all covered with roof shingles. Every morning I fed my girls from freshly washed cake pans and gave them treats in the same pans every afternoon. These pans were brought in and washed every night. Due to the problem of having night visitors - opossums, raccoons, fox, feral cats - I was forced to stay diligent. Needless-to-say, we never had bug or maggot problems.

Unfortunately, due to moving to another part of Sarasota, and taking care of an ailing relative, we had to give our girls to a local farmer.

We are now settled and ready for a new family of chickens but don't want to purchase again from the farm twenty miles south, so we need to know from all you folks where to purchase silkies and seramas.

Thanks,

Kathleen

Click on the link in my signature FLORIDA!!!!!ALWAYS SUNNY SIDE UP!!! and it will take you to our Florida BYC members page where the Florida BYC members are listed by county. Scroll down to Sarasota county for the Sarasota BYC members.

 

[seminolewind]

We live in Sarasota and two years ago had Rhode Island Reds, a Barred Rock, and white silkies. We made a 4'x8'x4' hen house inside a screened run, all covered with roof shingles. Every morning I fed my girls from freshly washed cake pans and gave them treats in the same pans every afternoon. These pans were brought in and washed every night. Due to the problem of having night visitors - opossums, raccoons, fox, feral cats - I was forced to stay diligent. Needless-to-say, we never had bug or maggot problems.

Unfortunately, due to moving to another part of Sarasota, and taking care of an ailing relative, we had to give our girls to a local farmer.

We are now settled and ready for a new family of chickens but don't want to purchase again from the farm twenty miles south, so we need to know from all you folks where to purchase silkies and seramas.

Thanks,

Kathleen