Small Chicken feed hopper

[farmerbrowne]

Howdy all,
I am looking at trying to make a small hopper to store my chicken feed in. I am thinking a maximum of 100bu. Has anyone ever made or bought something similar? I would love any advice and input. thought about using air ducting but not too sure if that would be strong enough to handle the weight of feed

 

[GodofPecking]

nice if it is airtight to stop bugs from getting in, and makes it easy to deal with them if they do (use a candle to do away with the oxygen).

 

[farmerbrowne]

nice if it is airtight to stop bugs from getting in, and makes it easy to deal with them if they do (use a candle to do away with the oxygen).

do you mean burn a candle inside the feed to suck up oxygen????

 

[aart]

That's a lot of weight...bushel of shelled corn is about 50 pounds?
Not sure what the volume size would be?
Why do you want to store so much.....lots of chickens?...cheaper to buy large volume?

 

[farmerbrowne]

That's a lot of weight...bushel of shelled corn is about 50 pounds?
Not sure what the volume size would be?
Why do you want to store so much.....lots of chickens?...cheaper to buy large volume?

I meant to say couple hundred pounds. Its cheaper to buy bulk and then I can rotate stock as well. I used to have two freezers so food never went stale but out here there's less room

 

[GodofPecking]

do you mean burn a candle inside the feed to suck up oxygen????

Yes, to me it's an obvious way to nuke absolutely everything in the bin in a way that will not kill me or the chickens. I mean, seriously if you spray any poison in or around your property it gets into you as surely as using it as a mouth freshener. It can 'say' it is safe, but don't they all.

So most critters need oxygen, so I'm going to leave a candle in a bottle and a box of matches in the feed bin at all times so that every time I go to close it up I will light the candle first and then close the lid.

If it doesn't kill them, it's sure going to annoy the living daylights out of them.

 

[aart]

DE mixed into feed will kill most bugs that might be in there.....
.....many feeds/grains already have it for just that purpose during storage.

 

[GodofPecking]

good way to waste money on some of the bugs.

obviously the DE won't be eaten by the chickens and so it will be spread across the ground and kill everything in the garden from bees to ladybugs. bonus. I'll go with the candle in the jar.

 

[21hens-incharge]

Pretty sure it is inside the pellets of feed so I am not worried about it getting into my gardens. I think it is nearly impossible to avoid it as an ingredient in feed.
Now if it is being added to a dusting area it can become air born and and issue.

 

[GodofPecking]

lol. It's not a food and can't be digested.

I don't think they're putting diamonds or gold nuggets into pellets for much the same reason.