I give my chickens laying pellets and they rake them all over the ground, seems alot of waste, does anyone have a feeder that will maybe prevent this?? I am using a feeder like the picture below. I have both standard and bantams together.
I use the same kind of feeder with crumbles. I have 17 standard and 2 bantam. I have never seen waisted food on the ground. I also keep the feeder in the hen house instead of the run so they really only go in to get it when they are truely hungry and they don't just pick and scratch at it. I keep it as high as I can off the ground too. I adjust the highth for the standards and I have a small perch that the bantams can stand on.
I have 3 feeders of that style. I have one on a concrete block held from above by a bungee cord hanging from a sawhorse. Two are hanging from chains and S-hooks under two coops. Raise 'em to be even with the hen's back, is what I hear. Works for me. No raked feed on the ground unless they get violent (if I put split peas in there- they like to shovel those out).
I do have it raised as high as I can for my bantams to reach but then the standards rake them out. Mines is hanging from a chain and a S hook.
Have you seen the PVC feeders people have posted here? They look great- but I have no experience with them. If you are interested, do a search for PVC feeder, or post a new question for it?
I had a bad experience with PVC feeders. They were billing out my crumbles by the fist-full, and I found a rat nearby that was very plump and pleased with himself (until he met my cat). If you go with the vertical PVC kind, make sure you add a piece that gives it a bigger lip. The horizontal ones are really nice, but didn't meet my need, which was to keep the rodents out. (The extra lip would have prevented me from putting the lid on every night)
I use rubber feed tubs (used for livestock). But, my chickens used to get into them and scratch or kick the pellets all over the place. Sometimes they would go back and pick that feed off the ground or floor, but mostly it got mixed into the bedding and went out into the compost. Now I put the feed tubs under the ramp to the chicken house, so they can get their heads in to eat, but can't hop into the tubs to kick.
I use something similar to that...with crumbles in one, pellets in another. I made it using a 5 gallon bucket and drilled out holes on the sides at the bottom. Fairly big holes for the pellets (maybe not quite golf ball size) and much smaller ones for the crumbles. (more oval shaped and just slightly wider then a large drill bit, and a little taller than two drill bit holes). On the crumble bucket, I attached a planter base... a heavier plastic one, that potted plants set in to catch water. The lip on it is more shallow and bowls out a bit...maybe only 1.5 inches deep or so. Drilled a hole in the center of the buckets and planter base and attached with screw and nut. Bucket has a lid, that I drilled a small hole in the top-- probably not so important for the pellets, but the crumbles flow better with the hole. For the pellet bucket, I used one of those metal feed pans I picked up at TSC. It's got much taller sides. Both bases have about a 2" gap/space between the bucket and the sides of the base. On the deeper pellet bucket base, they cannot get in it to scratch anything out, but can eat out of it just fine! On the crumbles bucket, they sometimes can scratch at the base, but as the base empties, they have to peck at the smaller holes for the crumbles to come out. There's not much waste with either feeder. I think the buckets with lids cost me $2. The base(s) were a bit more... both about $8. I had the extra bolts and nuts to attach them together.
I put my feeder inside a large plastic plant saucer that catches all the feed the chickens bill out. That way, none gets spilled on the ground, and I can recycle it or toss it out (if there are any droppings that get into it).
