Using metal garbage can as feeder?

[TheCluckandStrut]

I would need to see proof of such a thing. Some of us grew up drinking water out of a galvanized bucket filled with water drawn with a galvanized well trap door bucket. Zinc by the way is an essential element, far more likely to be harmed from not enough zinc than too much.

But I looked and there are a bunch of bloggers using the topic to generate clicks and traffic but once you dig down into the studies it concerns OLD MINING AREAS with huge amount of mining pollution.

One Washington State study initially published concerns- https://apps.ecology.wa.gov/publications/SummaryPages/1703018.html
-only to backtrack and report that they had been wrong by orders of magnitude. https://apps.ecology.wa.gov/publications/SummaryPages/1903008.html

For those without a scientific background, one order of magnitude means overestimating or over counting by a factor of ten. Two orders of magnitude would be 100 times less, three orders of magnitude would be 1,000 times less.

Humans need 8 to 12 mgs per day of zinc. Water should have less than 5mg per liter of zinc and anyone dumping more than 1,000 pounds of zinc into the environment needs to report the dumping to the EPA. Doesn't sound like zinc is that much of a problem.

But, to be safe lets look at one study that followed wild mallards living in one of those massive polluted mining sites. They took wild mallards, fed them between 3,000 and 12,000 ppm of zinc per day and sure enough the ducks got quite sick and even died. But that 5 mg of zinc per liter of water is only 5 ppm, the EPA limit where it is NOT poisonous but beneficial, past that it becomes a taste issue.

So feeding ducks 600 to 2400 times the recommended level of zinc can be harmful. Don't do that.

The other issue is bio availability, under what conditions does zinc or heavy metals leach into water or soil or through skin contact. Only when you have extreme acidic or alkaline conditions or very high heat. Galvanized buckets and containers are FDA safe as long as acidic food is not in contact with the surface.

Then consider the amount of zinc used for coating. For a thin coating such as the tin used on a tinned steel food can, six ounces per ton of steel. If you had a hot dipped galvanized bucket, maybe a fraction of an ounce per bucket. You would have to scrape off the zinc from the bucket every day to get close to the lethal dose.

Great research on this subject.

 

[ChickenShepherd_6116]

My husband was recommended to use a metal garbage can for storing the feed. We were talking feeders, and looking at the pieces you can attach to buckets, like this:


View attachment 4065612

Then he asked, why couldn’t we just put those on the bottom of a metal garbage can, and use the garbage can as the feeder?
View attachment 4065613
Why have a storage container and separate feeder?

So - tell us why that is not a good idea if it isn’t. Or is he onto something clever?

I use those feeding attachments on a plastic container and they work great, but i will say that the chickens nock a lot of food out of them and I don't think they keep birds from eating the food, which is what I bought them for...

 

[AGeese]

The bottoms rusting out are why I don't use galvanized cans - my climate eats them alive. Not zinc concerns.

{for reference, my 52+ inches of rain per year, frequent 80*+ temps, and clay soils take about 15 months to dissolve galvanized hardware cloth, less than 6 to dissolve chicken wire. Likely have more zinc in my environment from the memory of old predator protection than the one galvanized pail I used to own}

Not sure how much the chickens would actually get from situation like this the break down would mostly occur at the bottom of the can and be done. I doubt anyone would be getting more than 40mg of zinc from their chicken meat or eggs either so that wouldn't be the worry. I think my capsules are 25mg which I take daily.

I prefer PUFAs and PFAS over rust myself as much as I love galvanization for the fact it doesn't have those.

But the amount of mold that can build up in the bottom is what I would most concerned with. Now for some additional details these weren't being used as chicken feeders so they didn't have any place for air to escape, that said if one side doesn't you're very likey to see feed clump up due to moisture and if it's never cycled out of the can it will grow fungus.

 

[AGeese]

*something else I do is leave the feed in the bags when I put them in the cans.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Not sure how much the chickens would actually get from situation like this the break down would mostly occur at the bottom of the can and be done. I doubt anyone would be getting more than 40mg of zinc from their chicken meat or eggs either so that wouldn't be the worry. I think my capsules are 25mg which I take daily.

In the immortal words of D Adams, "Don't Panic". I'm certainly not.

The potential dosage is de minimis. My birds free range acres. the affected area is the perimeter of a 40' x 40' prior fence, and a 17' x 22' prior fence. After the first season it was obvious that simply wasn't going to work for me....

 

[AGeese]

In the immortal words of D Adams, "Don't Panic". I'm certainly not.

The potential dosage is de minimis. My birds free range acres. the affected area is the perimeter of a 40' x 40' prior fence, and a 17' x 22' prior fence. After the first season it was obvious that simply wasn't going to work for me....

So yeah rust would be more of a concern, but not sure if rust effects chickens like us.

 

[Al Gerhart]

See for yourself. Link below. https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/sick-duck.1652107/

I am going to try to be respectful as possible but I don't know how this can come across as anything but reflecting poorly upon your logical thinking and knowledge. Not my point to disrespect but if bad information isn't corrected then a forum becomes a place were ignorant old wives tales are spread. But the battle of ideas and facts educates everyone and we are all a bit smarter at the end of the discussion.

Now correct me if I missed something but the only mention of galvanized material in the thread you linked to was this and the link to the sick duck article:

"After we had a devastating mink attack, my husband built the super Max duck pen. Completely surrounded with galvanized hardware cloth. I think it might be corroding."

You truly believe that the hardware cloth made the ducks sick?

If that were the case, almost all of us have galvanized wire fencing of some sort, chicken wire, 2 x 4 welded wire, hardware cloth, all galvanized.

Why aren't everyone's birds getting sick and dying?

Besides using zinc in vitamin/supplements, we use it in make up, denture cream, sunscreen as zinc oxide. We get zinc oxide because zinc in its natural state reacts with oxygen, it "burns" no different than wood or paper, just at a vastly slower rate and once the zinc oxide forms on say hardware cloth it is more stable, i.e., more difficult to change forms. If zinc oxide gets wet it turns to zinc hydroxide which we use in cosmetics too, for UV stabilizing plastics and rubber, and for of all things, surgical dressings as an absorbent. But like most elements, pure zinc isn't stable, obviously, it oxidizes, moisture turns it into hydroxide, then the zinc hydroxide itself isn't stable, carbon dioxide in the air turns it into zinc carbonate which IS chemically stable. It isn't soluble in water so there goes the idea that zinc leaches out of water buckets or feeders. So zinc is like copper, the element itself isn't chemically stable, we don't go dig up copper or zinc nuggets because generally they would be scarce and even oxides, hydroxides, and most common carbonate forms of zinc would be rare too, zinc is found in nature as a sulfide. This is known as its divalent state, which is about the valancey of atoms (atoms would be elements themselves) or how well it combines with other elements like oxygen, sulfur, clorine, carbon dioxide. Now that explanation isn't exact but it is rough layman description. Elements rarely exist in pure form because of this, they must be refined from less pure forms.

Long story short, good luck ever finding high levels of zinc due to its absolute refusal to remain in its pure elemental form. Oxygen, water, even carbon dioxide turn it into its natural and more chemically stable states. Now with mining waste, now you got a problem. Ducks filtering the mining waste mud for bugs or worms, it gets down into their stomach where acid kicks in and the chemically stable divalent state changes and the zinc suddenly becomes bio available, meaning an organism can absorb the element or one of the divalent states of the element.

Even in the divalent state zinc isn't 100% stable, it is a reactive metal meaning it can be corroded with acids and/or oxidizing acids. But, zinc corrodes or rusts at 1/30th the rate of steel or iron. If sulfur is present it can combine with zinc to form zinc sulfate, which is a great herbicide. The most likely form of zinc found in that mining waste is likely zinc chloride because it is soluble in water.

So, no, zinc isn't going to be found in quantity due to the use of galvanized hardware cloth. It isn't stable enough to remain in a pure toxic state unless there are huge amounts due to mining waste where god knows how much chemical was used processing the ore into a pure elemental state so the mineral is useful.

Your hardware cloth and water bucket is not making anything sick. Respectfully....

 

[AGeese]

I take copper with my zinc supplement because zinc interferes with copper absorbtion so maybe that's what they're thinking? I've heard this brought up about geese before @Goosebaby

 

[Al Gerhart]

So yeah rust would be more of a concern, but not sure if rust effects chickens like us.

Once again, iron is an essential element, more likely to have problems from too little than too much.

 

[Sondraa]

I had a direct communication somewhere in that thread. They had their ducks tested and found it to be zinc poisoning. Her husband was rebuilding an entirely new accommodation to fix the issue and the screen shot also shows people who got their ducks tested. You are being offensive by the way. I am finished with this conversation. I pulled up a few examples. There are many. The person who started the thread can make their own choices.