Gravity Feeder not working out as well as planned...

[jettgirl24]

I made a super cool gravity feeder for my chickens that hold 2+ weeks worth of food. Everything about it works great except.... They have figured out how to shove their heads in there and toss tons of food out. They've gone through at least a weeks worth of food in the last two days and its now in a pile on the feed board. I've covered up the troughs with duct tape as a temporary fix to force them to eat whats on the ground but I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions to prevent this in the future. I didn't have any trouble with this with their baby size gravity feeder so it's super frustrating!

Here are some pics so you can get an idea of what I'm working with:

 

[heritagebirds]

I think the baby feeders work really well because they don't have room to fling food out to the sides. there are also feeders that have vertical bars that prevent the birds from flinging the food to the sides. It is a really neat design. I hope that you can get to rigged up so they stop wasting so much.

 

[Opa]

The problem with those types of feeds is that they allow the birds to turn their heads to the side and "bill" the food out. You can prevent that placing a wire grid over the feed tray. That way you force them to pick the food out.

 

[silkiechicken]

If you can put that up high, above back level, that may help the billing out because then they'd have to stretch to eat and use up some of that neck ordinarily used as a shovel. If that doesn't work, adding a half inch lip around the edges may help, along with lowering the feed level inside and adding bars with spacing about one and a half rooster head wide.

 

[Anotherday@thefunnyfarm]

That is an awesome feeder (other than them slinging it out).... how did you fabricate the bottom?

 

[MotherJean]

Hey Opa, what size wire grid would you suggest? Mine's a little different. It's the 3" PVC pipe down to a Y fitting. Haven't put it into service yet, but soon. I've been wondering if my youngsters would bill it out and waste it if I didn't put some sort of restriction there. Appreciate the advice.

 

[Opa]

I would use something about 1" wide to eliminate the side to side motion. With the PVC pipe wye I don't think you will need it as the bird must reach in to get feed

 

[jettgirl24]

That is an awesome feeder (other than them slinging it out).... how did you fabricate the bottom?

Thanks! I actually have to give credit to the home depot guy cuz he came up with it for us. It's 3' tall x 6" dia vent pipe, the bottom is just a vent cap that conveniently had 4 troughs when turned upside down. Cost less that $15 and it holds a bunch of food... Once I get the waste problem under control I think it will hold at least 2 weeks of food for my 4 chickens, possibly more!

The problem with those types of feeds is that they allow the birds to turn their heads to the side and "bill" the food out. You can prevent that placing a wire grid over the feed tray. That way you force them to pick the food out.

Thank you for the suggestion Opa, I'm definitely going to try the wire mesh!​

 

[Wiglwerm]

I made a feeder out of a bucket and a trash can lid and it held alot of food, but the problem I had was they also made a mess, wasting alot and then I got a RAT!! Attracted to this abundance of grain, tunneled in, I got rid of the feeder and he took one of my frizzle babies...needless to say I was VERY angry and he is VERY dead. I would love to put my feeder back up but I am afraid of attracting rodents, now I just sprinkle their food on the ground and wait for them to clean it up!