I can’t wait to be able to just dump a whole bag in there and walk away for a few days. Last weeks snow makes the short 50 ft journey to the coop quite an adventure when you’ve got a bucket of water and a bag of feed with you!

I’ll admit we haven’t had problems with mice in our coop, but I think this feeder design should be pretty secure. All the edges where the plywood panels come together have to be tight anyway so feed won’t leak out, and the top edge with the hinged lid can close up tight too (ours doesn’t, but it’s all about hinge placement). The advantage of this design is that there’s no feeding trough cantilevered out in front for a mouse to jump onto. Since it is recessed, the only direct route I can think of would be for them to drop off the lid of the feeder and swing into the trough, or jump up from the floor somehow. Seems pretty unlikely.

The more common problem I’ve read about is that the chickens spill food and the mice eat it off the floor. We don’t seem to have any problem with wasted food in this design. The first version gravity-filled a little too high, so I just made a new front lip that was 1/2″ taller and it retains the feed well. The feed level is 9″ above ‘average litter height’, so our chickens can’t seem to dig in the feeder with their feet. Of course, as with most livestock things, the habits of your birds may be very different than ours …

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.

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

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.