To hang or not to hang....

[daklander]

IMHO it very much depends on the space you have for your chickens. If there is limited space, sure go ahead and hang them so there's some bit of additional floor space. The thing with that is you can seldom raise them high enough for the birds to be under there comfortably and still be able to reach the water or feed. In reality the only need to hang them is if your birds have a tendency to roost on them and so soil the contents. If there's enough room and enough roosting area away from the water and feed they'd rather use those.
If there's enough space for the birds there is usually no need. I have my birds free ranging and they are seldom in the coop. They will eat from the feeder when they get up and about in the morning and usually one more time sometime in the afternoon or evening. It's the same for the water. The rest of the day they are free ranging and I'll toss out a few hands full of scratch a couple of times a day and I have a large stainless steel mixing bowl that's filled with fresh water daily. That is also used by my three dogs.
My current coop is about 120sf with seven hens and a rooster and I have never seen any of the birds on either the water tank or the feeder.
I will probably build some type of PVC pipe feed in the future but what I use is cheap and works great with no spillage and the birds cannot get into the feed to scratch it out.
I use a large sized cat box for the base and a plastic cat litter bucket for the feed holder. I use a piece of 4x4 trimmed to a triangle on one side and each end is angled to the feed is directed to the sides of the bucket where I have 1 1/2 holes drilled. So the bucket sets in the center of the cat litter box. The sides are high enough so, even sitting on the coop floor the birds cannot toss/bill the feed out and with the small distance between the bucket and the sides of the litter box they cannot climb in to scratch the feed out.

 

[ScottyHOMEy]

Quote:
I use the following style feeder, including the cover (usually sold separately) to keep the ladies off/out of it.

The bail on the feeder itself was a bit of a bump in the center of it, which makes it easy to center it up to hang it level. Suspended from the rafters by clothesline. The cover slides easily up and down over the clothesline for filling. To get it up out of the way for coop cleaning, I tie a clip into the clotheline at aa little above head-height, and clip the bail of the feeder to that, just to have it out of the way.

For the waterers, I use the double-wall galvanized.

Note the flat profile of the top of the handle. Very difficult to get or keep level. I craft a second hanger out of stiff (#9) fence wire. My crude drawing of it . . .

The high spot in the center allow it to hang level, again on clotheline dwon from the rafters. The hook on each end holds the bail on the outer cover of the waterer. To refill or remove to clean, it's easy to lift the bail on the waterer from the homemade hook wich remains tied to the rafter.

 

[allpeepedout]

Quote:
Like secuno, I have troughs about 4 in. deep blocked against wall, don't fill all the way, and they are fine. Chickens enjoy billing food but hardly throw any feed out since trough is deep. Stays clean and is too close to wall to poop in. I also use regular buckets for water and have never had one pooped in, no shavings, never tipped over, fast to clean. One solution for a small flock, once mature.