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

[QuiltinGramma]

Other people who have trouble with rats getting their chicken's feed will cap the opening at night and then take the cap off again in the morning. That seems to help with their rodent problem.

 

[henless]

I made my new feeder for my Cream Legbars. The street elbow opening looks much bigger, but its not that much bigger than the 3" regular elbow.

The first pic is my new 4" street elbow feeder. The 2nd is of buckets I made last year with 3" regular elbow. Hard to tell the difference, but there is some.


The main difference is on the inside. With the street elbow, you only have room for one opening. With the 3" I can put 3 in there with plenty of room.



If I find that I will need more feeding ports, I'll switch over to one of those square/rectangle totes and put the street elbows in there. So far this is working fine. I have 11 Cream Legbars and all are doing fine with the one port. Since I will be splitting them up when they get older, I may not need to get a different feeder.

I do like the street elbows better than the regular 90's. I don't have to use any caulking to attach the elbows. The lip on the street elbow keeps the 90 from coming out, and putting the cut off rim on the outside keeps the 90 from falling back in. I did find my 3" hole was a bit tight. I had to get a knife and open it up a bit. I left it a tight fit to make sure it would hold good.

 

[Cluckies]

Lowes, Home Depot and Menards all carry 3" PVC. You might have to buy a 4 foot section though and cut it down.

If you don't have luck there contact a plumbing company (contractor), they will have 3" for sure!

@jimmywalt have you tried to change your city ordinance so that you could have chickens again? This thread and the horizontal nipple not freezing thread are genius, and automatic chicken door of course! we need you to have chickens again to help us with new great ideas!

 

[jimmywalt]

@jimmywalt have you tried to change your city ordinance so that you could have chickens again? This thread and the horizontal nipple not freezing thread are genius, and automatic chicken door of course! we need you to have chickens again to help us with new great ideas!

@Cluckies How nice of you to say that! I still get email notifications when people quote one of my threads. Unfortunately we did get rid of our outrageously-cool chicken coop shortly after we were told by the township that we couldn't have chickens.

We then looked for something we could do with our 4 year old son (currently 5 yrs old), and came up with rabbits. We now have 6 three-hole stacks (18 cages) in our 2 car attached garage (along with our 2 cars LOL!). There is nothing in the township ordinances about "domestic rabbits" so there is nothing they can do if they wanted to. On top of that I decided that "if" they contacted us about our bunnies, they would have to get a search warrant before they could look in my garage. Fortunately for the past 1-1/2 years not thing has happened. Raising bunnies is fun and having babies (aka. kits) is also pretty profitable too. It's hobby that we love and actually pays for itself.

Thank you again for the kind words. I hope you are enjoying your chickens and the posts I did on this board. If you are ever into rabbits give me a shout and I can tell you about all the things I've come up with for them!

 

[kimc83]

jimmywalt,
I'm glad you could get into rabbits. I have bunnies too! I currently have 4 does, 1 buck and 24 kits. They are so much fun to raise. And yummy too

 

[ShrekDawg]

I just got 2 Home Depot buckets and 90° street elbows but my dad thinks they might be too big? I got 3" because 4" was way too huge and 2" looked too small. Maybe not though. So will 3" street elbow work or too big? I thought thats the size i'd heard

 

[mechanic57]

3" will work. you can get 3 of them in one bucket.

 

[ShrekDawg]

3" will work. you can get 3 of them in one bucket.

Thank you! Glad to here I didn't get the wrong size. they almost seem a little tight for three but that's also with the whole thing in the bucket, once I do it right I am sure it will be easier. So how many do you think I need for 8 birds? And stupid question but do you know where to find lids? Theu had none on them. Perhaps I could ask though

 

[MeepBeep]

3" will work. you can get 3 of them in one bucket.

Thank you! Glad to here I didn't get the wrong size. they almost seem a little tight for three but that's also with the whole thing in the bucket, once I do it right I am sure it will be easier. So how many do you think I need for 8 birds? And stupid question but do you know where to find lids? Theu had none on them. Perhaps I could ask though

All the big box stores sell lids for 5 gallon buckets in the paint supply area, even Walmart has lids back by paint/home remodeling generally... You can even get fancier screw on lids at most hardware stores as the 'removable' cheap ones will start to crack eventually...

As I keep saying I prefer 4" DWV elbows, they are smaller than 4" SCH 40 PVC and larger than 3" SCH 40 pvc, they are found in the irrigation area no the plumbing area of most big box stores...

And 2 or 3 ports should be fine for 8 birds as long as they have free access to it all day so they can take turns.... I have 8 ports for about 100 birds and they share just fine, except when I'm filling it and they all think it's something special and attempt to all eat at once...

 

[henless]

Thank you! Glad to here I didn't get the wrong size.

they almost seem a little tight for three but that's also with the whole thing in the bucket, once I do it right I am sure it will be easier. So how many do you think I need for 8 birds? And stupid question but do you know where to find lids? Theu had none on them. Perhaps I could ask though

Once you cut the cuff off of one end, three 90's will fit in the bucket. Two or three ports will be plenty for 8 chickens. You have to buy the lids separately. They are usually located next to the buckets.