Building a chicken feeder
February 4th, 2010
We’ve been using a chicken feeder we made from scrap parts ever since the chickens were two months old. Lately it’s been driving Robin a little crazy. Our eleven laying hens eat about 100 lbs of feed a month, which translates into refilling their small and awkward feeder every 3 days. After 7 months, it was time to build something better.
Having reviewed various suggestions online, I was struck by the simplicity of the feed hopper design at the top right of chapter 5 of Handy Farm Devices. Make a box. Install a lip to serve the feed and an angled panel to hold the feed. Add a hinged panel to fill. Simple! Of course, nothing I embark on is quite that simple, but I liked the concept. My version is this:
As you can see, I made a number of improvements to the basic design. The lid is angled at 45° to prevent hens from standing on it. The bottom is angled at 15° to encourage the last of the feed to slide to the front. The front panel is two separate pieces arranged to increase the capacity. The sides are 2×6 material, and everything else is made from scrap 1/2″ panel material (either plywood painted on one side or OSB with the sealed surface facing the feed).
Everything was assembled with screws. Since the box is 27.5″ wide, I added a small block at the middle of the tray to hold the three bottom panels tightly together. (In the event that we switch back to serving mash feed.) As I was working on this feeder, I came upon a rather interesting idea. Instead of screwing it to the coop wall, I would attach an angled rail to the back which could hang from a matching angled rail installed in the coop. A small spacer block at the bottom of the feeder would keep things plumb against the wall. We could then build several feeders of varying widths, and mix and match them to the feed. Lots of free range food? Add a narrow 8″ feeder with free-choice oyster shell to boost their calcium intake. Home grown corn or grain? Install two 16″ hoppers, one with a commercial mix (so the chickens can balance their dietary intake) and one with the grain. Any future feeders I build to this design will use a single angled front panel to simplify construction.
We invaded the chicken coop at 11pm to take some measurements and return with a rail to be screwed into the wall. (Robin didn’t want to wait another day after it was finished.) With the feeder hung, we poured in a full 50 lb bag of feed and there was still room for another 30 lbs or so. So, not only will this new feeder reduce the frequency of refills by at least 7x, but refills are now simply a matter of cutting open a bag of feed and dumping the whole thing into the feeder. Much simpler!
February 6th, 2010 at 6:40 am
Nice feeder! Now how about the waterer – how often do you have to fill that? I have to fill my feeder & waterer every 3 days or so, which I agree, is a chore.
February 6th, 2010 at 11:51 pm
Thanks Lynn! Yeah, the waterer is our last too-frequent chore. Every three days for us as well. Wash it out, refill, haul to the coop dripping water the whole way. If it gets off canter when it’s nears empty, the remaining water runs off the edge. I’m sure you know the drill with all those chickens.
We are considering several options, either a waterer with a really large storage tank (external) or an automatic waterer connected to a hose. I’d like to reconfigure the roosts (we have 15′ linear feet of roosts and the chickens all squeeze into 5′), and add another rail at the front. The waterer would then wall mount onto the same rail system, with a small hole for the hose to enter.
February 8th, 2010 at 6:17 pm
The auto-waterer with a hose sounds perfect!
Just recently I got to know our chicken waterer very well, and later had a laugh at myself. Normally Randy deals with the waterer because it’s too heavy for me to carry when full. But then he had to go away for 3 weeks, so he assumed I understood what to do. The 1st time it got empty, I carried it into the house, then had a real tough time getting the top off. Had to pry it with a crow-bar – Randy really had it on tight! I cleaned it in the tub, refilled it, man it was heavy to lug back out to the coop, dripping thru the house. I made sure to leave the top loose so I wouldn’t have a tough time removing it next time. Back in the coop, I removed the stopper, and the water POURED out, over the waterer rim, all over the coop; the chickens were running and screaming. I was like, “this doesn’t happen when Randy fills the water!”. Then I realized the top had to be on tight! I learned real quick – a tight waterer lid is good, just keep that crow-bar handy.
-Lynn
February 9th, 2010 at 2:05 pm
Ha ha, I can picture the chickens “running and screaming”. That made me laugh.
Well, thankfully our waterer just has a twist lock base, so it doesn’t take herculean strength to open and close. It’s only 1.75 gallons though, which is why the 11 hens go through it so fast.
February 15th, 2010 at 7:47 am
Bad Bloglines! My feed reader just now gave me an update on your four latest posts, so it’s 6 days behind! Anyway, hurray for Handy Farm Devices! Great feeder. We have that book but I didn’t realize it was online (though I should have because I know about the Small Farms Index Library). Even so, thanks for the link.