Need help with my PVC feeder - Chickens throwing food on ground.

[jimmywalt]

I made a PVC feeder which is like a lot I've seen here at BackYard Chickens. I only 5 have chickens (9 weeks old), and was surprised to see that even though they eat out of it, they also throw a lot of the food out on the ground. After watching this happen for about 5 minutes I decided to take it out of the pen and come here and ask what modifications does it need to prevent (or at least slow down) how much food is on the ground?

You can see all the food on the ground in the second picture.

Here are pics of my feeder. It's 3" PVC.

Thank you.

 

[jimmywalt]

Bump.

Still looking for suggestions. Thank you.

 

[jimmywalt]

Bump.

Still looking for suggestions. Thank you.

 

[lesgo54]

Try raising it higher off the ground. I did that and noticed less food on ground

 

[speedy2020]

Try to cover the feeder with black end cap. I would drill 1-2 holes in the center of the end cap just little larger than their heads. Why black color end cap... so the chicken can see very well to prevent them from pick and choose the food. The end cap also prevent the food from flying out (don't glue the end cap). I have 1 hen she spend most of her time picking on food so I come up with similar technique.

 

[mikeharold]

I would try raising it up as suggested too and you can also get a 4x3" reducing bushing so they can't scrape the food out.

 

[User 1234567]

how does it work?

 

[mikeharold]

The reducer? It just shrinks the opening to 3" so they can't swish their head around in the hole spilling the feed. The other thing you can do is add a piece of pipe to the opening so they have to stick their whole head in to get to the feed eliminating the spillage also.

 

[User 1234567]

Have you seen a significant reduction in spillage with this feeder? I can't begin to guess how much feed and money gets wasted by my chickens.

 

[mikeharold]

There is virtually no feed on the ground at all and that is with 6 chickens feeding. The floor in the coop when I had the old feeder in there was covered in feed, but once I set this one up the waste all but stopped! For me, there is no other way to go. TMMV though.