Help! I need some suggestions on how to stop my hens from spilling so much feed.

[woody1]

In my not so humble opinion, any feeder that does not have some sort of system to prevent billing out is just a feed waster. Most of the commercial feeders I see are just that. You need something
to prevent them from throwing feed out with their bills. pdirt's treadle feeder is not too different from one of mine in that they must feed through holes to get to the feed. Some of my feeders have an inside lip which catches most of the feed they try to throw out. I've never used one of the PVC feeders but they would seem to do the tric but they won't keep the wild birds out.. Regards, Woody

 

[DianaMallory]

Thanks Woody. My husband made me a new feeder with the bucket and pvc pipe. Feed is lasting longer now. Still some waste but not as much as with the other feeder.

 

[azygous]

You asked for solutions. I have two. No, wait. Three.

Back when I was feeding dry crumbles, I designed some feed catchers to hang under the feeders to catch all the spill. They fit sort of like the seed catchers fit under bird cages.

Another way to keep the feed from being "beaked out" is to use straight sided deep bowls. Chickens can't beak out feed as long as the container isn't flared outward and shallow like almost all feeders are. A lot of dog dishes are deep and straight-sided.

The last solution I offer is to feed fermented feed. There is zero waste since you usually feed just twice a day, and I scrape any left overs back into the ferment bucket to ferment until next morning.