The waste! Oh the wasted feed...

[zuluchicken]

Once you have all the material ready it will not take more than 30 min. to make this feeder. I am going to add a 25Lt container above the existing bottle in order to increase the capacity. The 25 Lt container will feed into the existing 5 Lt bottle. This arrangement should give me at least a week if we have to go away. I could not find a bigger bottle with the same diameter outlet and tapered shoulders to fit into the down pipe.

This method should work for ducks as well. You might just have to widen the gap at the bottom because I am not sure if they will be able to get the food out from underneath the pipe. Do not make the gap too big because then the food will spill into the gutter and you will have wastage again.

As far as the type of food is concern the following. I start my chickens off on Starter mash up until a 6-8 weeks. They do get the odd cup of mixed grain for scratch as a treat. From 8 weeks they go over to pellets - no arguments- no discussion. They still get their scratch and scraps from the kitchen. They have the free run of our very big garden for at least 3 hours every day. Unfortunately we have to guard them whilst they are out because of predators.

 

[Twisty]

Chooketeria.com or treadle feeders of some description. Im not a great handy person either and with the moving parts on a treadle feeder it was just easier for me to buy one. However - there are some great designs to try out like the one posted by pdirt.
I had the same trouble with pellets in my hanging feeder - food all over the ground, which the chooks did eat some of but the rodents were also making a move at night. The treadle feeder works so well now that they are used to it - did take a little training but they figure it out pretty quickly. No more spilt food and no more rodents!!

 

[Data]

Another homemade 5 gallon bucket feeder made with street plastic elbows for $10 holds 25 lbs of feed and I see no waste. I hang it from a rope and raise it as the girls have grown so they have to work to get the feed at the bottom of the elbows. It's far better than any commercial feeder I've seen.

 

[dogmom]

Hello!

We used to have a similar problem with our entire flock - from day-old chicks to our retired, senior end of the spectrum. What we came up with is "chicken soup". No - not THAT kind! We bring in a container of crumbles. We put about six cups into a big stock pan. Then we make "soup" with leftover liquids (put water into that catsup bottle and shake, the water from canned veggies, etc.) The grandkids didn't eat their crusts? Throw those into the soup. Have some leftover rice, veggies, milk, fruit? Add it to the "soup". Our chickens like their soup rather thick so sometimes we add rice, cornmeal, lentils, and so on. We cook it and then let it cool. Then we take the stock pot outside and spoon it into the flock's feeding troughs (the things that go under the roof - eaves?) and then we step back. Because we have four feeding stations our entire flock of 57 birds has plenty of room to eat without fighting one another. Even the littlest babies are able to get their fill without worry. Our head Roo, Eric, makes sure every member of the family gets his or her fill. We make up a huge pot of this about every other day and it's completely gone within ten minutes. Sometimes we vary it with yogurt, shredded cheese, apple sauce, shredded cabbage, cooked squash, cooked oatmeal or whatever else we happen to have on hand.

We live in a rural area so during Spring, Summer and Autumn we are able to get huge watermelons and melons for next to nothing. We cut them in halves, stab the "meat" with barbecue tines, and then put chicken crumbles in the holes. The chickens love this! When the weather gets really, really hot we also take chicken feed crumbles and make ice pops with them and flavored waters. The chickens fight over these.

Chickens remind me of children. They don't want the same thing for dinner day in and day out so you just need to be a bit creative giving them their veggies, so to speak.

I hope this was helpful. Good luck!

Jamie Ritter
White Cloud, Michigan USA

PS - Our chickens are free-range on our three acres and our neighbors allow them on their fifteen so they don't just live on chicken soup! They eat herbs, toads, insects, minnows (our neighbors have a pond) and other goodies from nature.

 

[Daedalus62]

For what it's worth, my 2 cents...

Never had much trouble with spillage (like someone mentioned back there, feeders must be hanged at chickens backs height), but I had with wild birds (namely a flock of wild turtledoves) that ate more than the chickens...

After trying a different number of things (and killing two birds with one stone

), I've made my version of the trigger-feeder... Simple to make, no waste (chickens only peck as much as they eat) and no parasite (wild birds or rats, for example) feeding because they just can't reach it!... For me, best feeder ever!!

The one I made... Corn in there, but it works just as well with feed or pellets... I have it hanging from a tree.



Cheers

 

[venymae]

Daedalus62 - could you please please please, write up a tutorial about how you made your trigger feeder!? Like materials, size of hole, what you cut/glued everything with. I have been looking for one for a long time!

 

[StevenW]

I like it!

 

[SpaceCowboyT48]

I've been at this for about twenty years, now. When I started chicken wrangling, there weren't that many people doing it, and there really wasn't much of an Internet either, so I didn't get much feedback from others about things. The feeder off the ground seems to worry a whole lot of other chicken hobbyists, so I thought maybe I should worry, too.Never much worried about the price of feed either, until just recently. I've always rested my old-fashioned galvanized feeder on the ground. If the chickens are hungry, they'll bend over and get it. But I had been noticing the sheer volume of feed not getting eaten. Ultimately, I had three concerns: Getting the feeder off the ground. Second, I've always had to find a place to put the feeder when it rained. I'm in Southern California, so rain and cold aren't really serious considerations. Still, it'd be nice to not have to go and stash the feeder every time its going to rain, or if it would catch me off-guard and rain when it wasn't expected. It happens, you know. Finally, how 'bout that crumble. I've tried the pellets, and I don't think my chickens like it as much, and I've had a lot of chickens over the years. BFK seems to be their favorite, and curiously, I've started worrying lately about whether my chickens are happy. But crumble goes in all sorts of directions all over the run. I wanted to stop that. So three things: Feeder off the ground, A cover for rain, and shade too, come to think of it, and reducing the loss of feed. So I built this:


Mostly scrap wood, and it looks it. There was some tan paint that I used until I ran out, then there was some redwood stuff left over from some project ten years ago. There was some black paint, too. I passed on that. What the Hell did I get black paint for. I painted it all over. That's raw tar paper on the roof, because I'll be ****** if I'm going to buy roofing shingles and trim for a feeder. Although I might yet. The roof on the closest side is on hinges so I can lift it up to dump feed in the feeder. As it turns out, unless I want to raise the feeder higher, that's not an issue. So the feeder is raised a little, it's protected from rain and sun, but best of all, the wood floor has edgings. 2x3s on top of the wood floor. It's like a bowl. All the feed that the chickens kick out of the feeder lands in the bowl, and every couple of days I scoop it out and put it back in the feeder, because Lord knows the spoiled feathered brats can't bend over to eat what they've spilled. I figure I've reduced the crumble loss by as much as fifteen percent. I didn't plan it, but the size of the floor is such that the chickens can't step in too well, so they don't poop on the fallen feed, much. So, despite it looking like chicken poop, I'm rather proud of it.

 

[NapaChicknGal]

the large pail looks "tippy", no? and heavy. I broke down and bought a large feeder but dummy me got metal and it's pretty heavy for an old gal.

 

[NapaChicknGal]

you go away? How does that work w/locking up and letting out the girls?