Make your own - No waste - 5 gallon (25# feed) bucket feeder for about $3

[Finnie]

I have a "v" cut out for my deicer in winter so I keep a board and a construction cone on top of mine.

No dust, no poop.

I cut a notch in my bucket and lid, too, for my deicer. Then when winter ended, I realized I could turn my lid around the other way to block the hole. I forgot all about making an air inlet to avoid a vacuum building up, but I guess my notch serves that purpose. Even when blocked, it isn't really a tight seal.

 

[pfields]

We have well water. Our well is over 500 feet deep and our water is very soft.


My down nipple water is an orange igloo and it never gets green on the inside. The clear plastic part is a pain to clean.


This is not mine but it looks just like it except the lid has a round hole in the middle. It turns green on the inside (not quickly) but it's easy to clean.



Mine looks similar to this one, except it has a black screw on top.. It gets green inside and they get sand/dirt in the red part quickly.

 

[SilverLacedMom]

What alterations, if any, would be needed for bantams, can they still stick their head in and get feed with this layout?

Thank you!

 

[Alaskan]

What alterations, if any, would be needed for bantams, can they still stick their head in and get feed with this layout?

Thank you!

They do fine with the exact same setup as the big guys.

 

[SilverLacedMom]

They do fine with the exact same setup as the big guys.

Thank you dear, will be making mine shortly...we had a terrible storm that blew in rain (70MPH winds mind ya!) and they had feed on the ground. I didnt know it, and it made a feed "mash" on the floor. Something was smelling funky in the coop...then I found it was like a rotting mess of feed mash...It was nasty! So having to do a deep full cleaning and I just put in fresh hay not too long ago...

 

[Alaskan]

blach!

I feel your pain!


Talking about cleaning... poop trays are the best thing ever for helping the coop stay clean.

 

[palomasfarm]

We have put 300 lbs of feed through our feeder now with no issues and I am just beginning to get feed dust buildup in the bottom. We put our elbows about an inch off the bottom of the feeder, and feed locally milled organic feed, so it's not pellets or crumbles, but more similar to scratch in appearance. When the feed level drops in a few more days we are going to clean it out and then fill it to the top. We don't have a storage facility for our feed at the moment, so this will part of our solution to reduce loss to rodents. My husband estimates a 5% loss to mice and rats and squirrels right now (feed stacked and tarped on pallets in the garage) and we are organic, so can't use poisons to kill the little buggers. Anyhow, I digress, but we are making another feeder asap! It has worked wonderfully for our pullets and I am thrilled that we got this pulled off for such a great price. We got barrels for free from a dairy and spent about $40 per barrel on elbows and silicon.

 

[Calima]

Where is the instructions to the feeder?

 

[Finnie]

page 1 of this thread

 

[heiditam]

I am so making one! A q...how many openings would I need for 10 chickens? Currently, they can eat at the same time...well sort of-7 take turns, 3 wait and then eat later... so... this will be diff in that only one hen can eat at one time...so I am wondering how many openings I should make? Thanks!