What are your favorite waterers and feeders?

My favorite feeder for chicks and mama is a pretzel tub screwed onto a tin pie plate with a bale attached near the lid and holes cut out at the base to make a continous feeder that can be hung up. Their waterers are the large, glass ones from days gone by...holds about half gal. of water.

For the bigger birds, I use an old trough style feeder wrapped in welded wire to prevent flicking, shoveling and scratching of the feed and this feeder is raised up on concrete blocks out of the deep litter. Their waterer is a large, black rubber salt pan in the warm months and a heated dog bowl in the winter months.

Scraps are thrown out in the garden and eaten free choice.

 

I made my own waterers and feeders.

Waterers: I took an old, 1970's, Tupperware; drilled a hole in the bottom and put a nipple waterer through it. Tie-wrapped it in the corner of the run and voila! I made 2, one for opposite corners.

Feeders: I took a 3" PVC, cut 2 lengths, placed a cap on top, an elbow on the bottom and attached another length to it. I cut out an opening on the top of the horizontal length. I made a wire cage around it so that my girls don't perch on top.


I cover the feeders at night, to prevent critters from eating up their food, with a homemade cover made from an emptied out powder container I got at the 99cent store.

 

Feeder, Holds 65# of feed.


Waterer, Endless supply.


Treat trough, Keeps everyone playing nice.

 

We have a store bought feeder and waterer. My husband isn't really a big fan of making things, and although we did make a pvc feeder, it doesn't work as well as the feeder we bought. We have a metal feeder that hangs and holds 30 lbs and a 3 gallon top-fill plastic waterer. Whenever we get around to getting the pvc feeder out of the old coop we'll probably use it for oyster shell or something.

 

My feeders are 40# galvanized feeders which I have in every coop and my waterers are automatic.

 

Quote:We usually just toss the scraps on the ground. I don't like to mix stuff in their feeder. They seem to knock the feed out of the way trying to get to the other stuff.

Regarding the waterer, just make sure whatever you decide it's fairly easy to remove for cleaning. I don't scrub and/or sanitize my waterer all too often, but I know it would be wiped clean even less frequently if I had to unscrew some sort of bracket. Feeders don't really need cleaning.

 

For waterers, we have the double-walled galvanized ones, rubber-type water bowls from the feed store, and heated dog bowls. Galvanized are only for summer. In winter, the heated dog bowls replace the waterers in the coops so there is always at least one source of unfrozen water in each. The rubbery bowls are used all year long, indoors and out. In winter they get the ice stomped out of them each morning and refilled, it's very important to have bowls that can take this treatment!

I just realized I didn't look to see where you are. If you're in Florida, just ignore me.

Good luck!

Oh, re scraps: I don't feed scraps anywhere that I don't want to have chickens standing/scratching/pooping. Next to your door or deck probably not the best idea. Find a nice spot a little bit away from the house and feed treats there. Not that they won't occasionally scratch or poop where you don't want them to, but you don't want them to have a particular reason to hang out somewhere inconvenient for you.

 

For years I have been trying to find decent feeders and waterers. I have tried almost everything to keep them from wasting food and dumping water. With anywhere from 500-700 at one time I can't afford to run out and buy new ones every spring so I now mostly use gallon milk jugs cut down to fit the size of the birds. Once they tear up I have others to replace them since we buy milk several times a week.
Commercial feeders can be great, like the metal hanging hoppers but those plastic ones are constantly falling apart with the knocking around my birds can give them.




I also should add that as feeders in my tractors I can zip tie the handles to the 2x4 corner and make it loose enough to tip over and clean out but the chickens can't scratch out the feed or knock it over. I need to get photos of that, too.