I started out with PVC pipe feeders, U shape, bottom run had 2" holes to get to the feed. Switched to the metal hanging feeders to try to control the rats. I had been hatching chicks using a homemade incubator made from a hot water heater thermostat and light bulbs so I had set one of the hanging feeders on the ground for the four week old poults to eat from.
Once day I picked up that feeder, curious why the poults and hens were so terrified and I seemed to be hatching dozens of chicks a week but the flock number wasn't increasing. Up boiled a basket ball size nest of rats in the hole under the feeder, in a mad dash for the holes in the coop.
After some searching here on BYC I learned of the Grandpa feeder, at the time $250 plus shipping, couldn't afford it, so a wooden treadle feeder was built and I posted pictures here on BYC. That led to selling a few and the realization that a lot of people couldn't afford the $250 feeder so a $50 wood feeder was born.
Eventually, listening to feed back led to metal sides and bottom/back with a wooden door, then to a full metal feeder, $65, until I was exhausted assembling feeders on my kitchen table after work hours. A small family factory was built in the Philippines and we shipped feeders until Covid shut us down through the skyrocketing cost of shipping and I re started production here in Oklahoma $85. Prices had to go up unfortunately, Grandpa had to cut their prices by one third due to the competition, and now there are other Chinese made copies for half of the original price of the Grandpa feeder (also made in China). Weirdly, they just copied instead of improving the feeder or fixing the flaws. We still build in the Phillipines, I have thousands of feeders stacked up waiting for shipping costs to come down.
Looking at the survey results, 75% of the small sample either don't have a problem with feed theft so that is good. What would be interesting is a survey of how people deal with feed theft if they don't have a treadle feeder.
