The waste! Oh the wasted feed...

[Lynn Manes]

This is the one I'm currently using in my 3 quail pens that are similar to yours and that I don't like.

This is what I'm changing to. I just used it for my new 7 month old bantam for a couple of days when she was quarantined and it worked out great. Hope this helps

 

[DmCrawlz]

I had that feeder and had the same issues. Made this one. Perfect. As long as it is under the cover of a coop there is no wet feed and the chickens have to reach fairly far down so there is hardly any waste. Now that we have 16 girls, I would like to make it a little bit taller.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

I feed mine in dishes, I figure out how much they will eat in a day including any cleanup, and only put out what they eat in a day, when I go out in the morning they have everything cleaned up and are waiting for more, and this way I'm not feeding rats and mice all night.

 

[Egghead_Jr]

Yes pellets will work with that feeder. I honestly prefer pellets because they are not as easy to knock out of the feeder and if they do they find them on the floor and eat them unlike the crumbles.

X2 on pellets.

I cringe a bit each spring after hatch when all the birds go on crumble. It's just easier to keep everyone on same feed. But once those chicks get 10-12 weeks old everyone is back on pellet feed. The all flock type feed in pellet form I find is turkey finisher.

I keep thinking I'll move over to fermented feed but still have too many mini projects and other kinks to work out with the new set up since moving a year ago. Eventually, perhaps next spring I'll start playing with fermenting.

 

[LI chickie]

I feed mine in dishes, I figure out how much they will eat in a day including any cleanup, and only put out what they eat in a day, when I go out in the morning they have everything cleaned up and are waiting for more, and this way I'm not feeding rats and mice all night.

I use these stainless steel large trays I measure and soak my feed no waste.

 

[centrarchid]

Place in or hang over the hanging feeder relative to a large diameter rubber dog bowl. An appropriately sized bowl will obstruct scratching and prevent birds from billing feed out onto ground.

 

[Lynn Manes]

I had that feeder and had the same issues. Made this one. Perfect. As long as it is under the cover of a coop there is no wet feed and the chickens have to reach fairly far down so there is hardly any waste. Now that we have 16 girls, I would like to make it a little bit taller.

Nice.

 

[NapaChicknGal]

I don't have a coop that feed wd/fit in so they get fed in run area. One is former dog dish and they kick all the feed out--so I guess I'll have to quit being so cheap and get larger round thing that can be hung. I have smaller one and they never empty it--new pullets eat from it and it is not hung. I don't really have a tree that wd work w/hanging it.

 

[tmarr]

Guys I use a battle arena...no word of a lie lol!! I'm not quite sure why it works but they are able to climb into it and scratch a bit and believe it or not there is NO spillage!! It was only 99p as well!

 

[VH Chicken Farm]

This is the feeder I'm using for three 12 week old chickens, hanging at their chest height, with crumble: And dang if they don't knock it around, send it swinging, eat like animals (oh, wait...) and knock at least a third if not more of the feed all over the bottom of the coop. I tried fermenting feed for a while, but it's too much daily work, and it kept molding. I've got 50 lbs of crumble to go through before I can switch to pellets I suppose, but I don't like the idea of pellets, it just seems so...boring and rabbit foodish. And will they work with this feeder? Will they still be knocked around? And why don't they eat that dang crumble off the floor before heading back to the feeder? (Because they aren't intelligent humans, I know, it was rhetorical, lol.) I hate all this waste! Any suggestions?

We also had your problem until we started using a bucket feeder. It ends up costing $30 if you don't have the tools to do it, but you make it up in feed.It's a 5 gallon bucket with 4 holes we drilled in it, and we stuck four 3" 90 degree street elbows in the holes. Now the chickens have to stick their head down in the elbow to get the feed. Hope you solve your problem.