homemade feeders by RendonRoo

[PunkinPeep]

RendonRoo, have you considered selling these great contraptions to other BYCers? I love that you provide us with plans, but i wonder how much you would charge to make them for us?

Oh, and i'm very excited to see your plans for the waterer....toilet valve - great idea!

 

[RendonRoo]

I would have to charge between 20 and 25 bucks for them. I don't for two reasons.
First reason is that if you will print my instruction and pics, take them to Home Depot or most other hardware type stores they will have all the pieces. They usually have cut lengths of pipe and all you would have to do is stick two fittings on the end and hang. Also the shipping of these would be more costly than the materials to make them.

Second reason is that i've had tons of ppl here help me with problems in the past and i believe that's what this site is all about. This is my way of returning the favor, so to speak.

I think the waterer i've got in mind will work great but would be better shown with pics of a working system. I have water piped to the inside and outside of my coop. If you don't have a water supply close by it won't be efficient. Will have instructions and pics in a few weeks and will start a post for them.

Thanks for the compliments but this idea was stolen from some deer feeders i read about and made several years ago. On the deer feeders i used the wye fitting like on the earlier post but i used gravel in the bottom to let them drain. It worked well with grains but crumbles like i use would just turn to mush. With the deer feeders i made i found that they made better critter feeders than deer feeders. LOL

 

[RendonRoo]

oops, double post, sorry

 

[KatyTheChickenLady]

I had an OLD time chicken farmer tell me how to do the automatic waterer to all of the pens. But I have different ages and breeds seperated and sometimes have vitamins or medicine for just one pen. I hate the galvanized things and was trying to figure out a PVC plan but my brain just won't wrap around it.

 

[briteday]

I made a 5 gallon self filling water bucket for my hens. I got a 5 gallon bucket, a common toilet fill valve, 12" toilet hose (normally goes from the bottom of the toilet tank to the water supply at the wall), a garden hose and a few nipple waterers from FarmTek online.

I drilled the proper size hole in the center bottom of the bucket so that the toilet valve can be connected thru the bottom. Stick the bottom of the toilet valve thru the hole and connect it to the supply hose on the outside of the bucket. The supply hose is to make the transition from the size of the outlet on the toilet valve and to transition to common garden hose which is normally 3/4". Then connect the supply hose to your garden hose. I believe the nipple waterers require a 3/8" hole in the bottom of the bucket. They work on gravity to open and close so be sure to put them on the bottom of the bucket, not out the sides. I put 4 nipples on the bottom of the bucket. (shipping is expensive so I bought more nipples for replacements later) Once you have the nipples installed all you have to do is hang the bucket from the wall so that it is about "head level" with your chickens and turn the hose on. I keep a lid on the bucket but it needs to be loose. If it is airtight the nipples will not work.

The nipples do not drip and I leave the water turned on at the bib so that the bucket refills on its own. My neighbor uses an aquarium heater in the winter to keep the water in the bucket from freezing. My only issue is that I do not have a water bib near the coop so I'm sure the water in the hose is going to freeze when the temps drop. I'm hoping next year to bury a water line so that it won't be a problem in the future.

What I learned is that the chickens will be slow to learn to use the new waterer unless you take away all other sources of water. Then you only have to get one chicken to try it and all the others will follow.

I built the PVC feeders for oyster shell. But with 20 chickens I was filling the feed often. So for layer feed I took an old outdoor plastic garbage can, drilled some 1" holes at the bottom of one side (square can), attached a garbage can lid upside down to the bottom of the can (to catch the food as it comes out the holes...screws and fender washers work fine to attach it), and put the other lid ontop to keep out rodents. (we had a bunch of these garbage cans around and some of them had worn thru the bottom so we had extra lids)

I put the feeder inside the coop on cinder blocks so the girls cannot bill out the food. The PVC oyster shell feeders sit on either side of the layer food feeder on cinder blocks as well. I keep mouse traps set behind the feeder just in case. But have yet to find any rodents in the coop, or even any evidence of rodents...if you know what I mean.

I keep a 3-gallon conventional plastic water bucket inside the coop for days when the chickens cannot go outdoors due to weather. But I only put water in it when they need to use it.

 

[cjexotic]

Question on the PVC feeders. I am having two problems.. could use some suggestions.
My silkie feeders the crumbles are hanging up in the neck. You mentioned chain RendonRoo how would you use the chain?
Second the pheasants are bailing their food out. Head flinging at their best. What can I add or do to fix this. I don't want to take them down.. one there is a lot of money there and this system keeps them from pooping in the food. But when I got home last night the feeders were empty and major food on the ground. The pheasant feeders are the 1 1/2" pipe .. 1' high.

Thanks for the help. cj

 

[KatyTheChickenLady]

Quote:
I'm still working on the hanging up in the neck issue myself. But I would suggest for your pheasants to put the corn in a seperate feeder and only give them their daily ration of it if you want them to eat the other food too.

 

[cjexotic]

the reason I went to these feeders it they roost on the bowls and then poop in them.
Don't want them eating soiled food.

 

[KatyTheChickenLady]

oh I know me too! what I was thinking was for your pheasants to have 2 feeders one for corn one for pellett/crumbles, maybe that would stop the flinging?

 

[nhnanna]

Quote:
Could you put some kind of covering like chicken wire or rabbit wire on top of them?
I don't know anything about pheasants but something big enough for them to get thier beeks in to eat but not throw the food out.