Going on vacation for a week, no friends in the area, need ideas to feed 12 chickens for a week.

[Countrypltryfan]

my fiancee and I moved to the area about a year ago, but keep to ourselves and havent made many if any close friends. he badly wants to fly to FLA for a week to see his family, weve been dabbling with ideas on how to keep our twelve chickens fed (as cheaply as possible) but as next week may be his only one off for quite awhile, ive been put on rush. any epic ideas for automatic feeders? please and thanks.

 

[Granny Hatchet]

flock block??

 

[enola]

When I go on vacation I use a 55 gallon barrel cut in half length wise an prop it up with cinder blocks. I pour the whole bag of feed in it. I put extra waterers in the coop. The neighbor kids come over and mske sure they have water.

 

[Countrypltryfan]

ive never heard of a flock block before, but the 55 gallon barrel sounds like a great idea if i could find one, or something like it. i was thinking about just putting it on the ground in the coop, but i was afraid they would scratch it underneath the hay.

 

[yyz0yyz0]

check out my post on my coop build, scroll down to post #6 and you'll see my auto feeder.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/784144/the-rubber-room-is-open-for-business


I can't remember where I ordered the t-bar trigger from, below is an crude drawing of one you could make from a coat hanger and a plastic spoon. I took a 5gal pail which holds about 30lb of feed and drilled a hole in the bottom of it and the t-bar trigger drops into this hole. As the girls peck at the trigger it stirs the food and some falls out the hole. The hole size depends on the type of feed you have, pellets need a bigger hole then crumbles. With my 5gal pail and 8 birds I can go a couple weeks without worry.



Bend the coat hanger into a "T" shape and glue the bowl of a plastic spoon to the top of the "T". This is very similar to what I bought, it works great. Almost too great, once the girls figger it out they might hit the trigger too often but if you have a tray of some type below the hole then the tray holds the extra food till they are ready to eat it.

I've been using this for several months now and love it. Between this feeder and the nipple waterer all I need to do on a daily basis is collect eggs and clean the poop boards couple times a week. We have gone away several times with no issues.

 

[Fred's Hens]

What will become of all those eggs?

 

[roostereggs]

What will become of all those eggs?

More chickens, of course!

 

[chad-o]

What will become of all those eggs?

If the bloom is not washed off they will keep.

 

[yyz0yyz0]

What will become of all those eggs?

Already had this discussion with my wife if we go away in the warmer weather. I mentioned that worst case when we get back we can just scramble up all the eggs that were laid and feed them back to the hens. if you crack them one at a time into a bowl you will be able to keep out any that went bad and feed all the good ones back to the girls.