has anyone found a quality WOODEN treadle feeder? Tired of wild birds getting feed

[ladyearth]

Hubby said "I can make it"""" heck he has more important things we needed ... I rather buy. saw :"Precesion"brand, but read review it looks junky. I dont trust galvanized esp in cold weather
I know one guy says he only feeds chickens in their coop. Mine dont even return to their coop ...ONLY to sleep...
they have several "solariums and topper shelter, etc in their giant 100 plus 100 feet RUN
Dang WILD birds even flying thru the upper 1'' poultry wire roof... Or even thru the barely propped open" gate . They even fly in or through the run with hardwae cloth bottom and 1 inch poultry wire roof ,too.
Plus now they even go into their truck topperthat is scewed on enclosed surround
gonna have to figure out something.. that why I wanna BUY a well made treadle feeder////
i guess going to have to put their grains into the 5 gallon feeders with the 90s elbows...
,

ANYONE Making any here...???? thinking about the Amish but they are over 20 miles away.and I hate those back roads here
thanks all
PS I ordered metal,hope it is galvanized too the other day.....

 

[pdirt]

My wife made a wooden one a couple years ago. She made it with pine and while it's still holding up, it's got a few cracks in it and certainly isn't "like new" anymore. It still works, though the lid on the feed tray that is supposed to drop down when they step off no longer shuts. I have to manually shut it when I put them to bed. Our main issue is with mice at night, during the day the only critters eating the feed are the chickens.

While she made one with I think plans she found on BYC, she had an engineer with a nice wood shop help her. He figured out the hinge portions at also installed a piece of galvanized sheet metal inside the feed hopper to better help guide the feed into the tray. This prevents feed from piling up in the bottom rear corner. It was certainly more engineering and tools required than I would have had interest for.

If you plan to have chickens for several years, I'd take look again at the metal ones, as I think they will last much longer. Build a large roof over it to keep snow and rain off of it.

EDIT: We started using our treadle feeder with 6 hens, now we have 23 chickens, to give you better perspective.