How to make a do-it-yourself chicken feeder 

Growing chickens is not very cheap for the poultry farmer. Most of the costs are associated with the purchase of feed. To reduce its losses, you need to choose the right feeders. It depends on their design how much the chicken will transfer grains. The best option is a factory-made chicken feeder, but with knowledge of the matter, you can assemble it yourself.

Varieties of chicken feeders

Before you make chicken feeders with your own hands, you need to understand their varieties. This will help you decide which design you need.

Material difference

Chicken feeders are made of wood, metal or plastic. The choice of material depends on what kind of feed the structure is designed for. So, the difference in material:

• The most common are wooden structures. They are intended for filling chickens with dry feed. Wood is a natural material and is best suited for grain, dry feed, and various mineral supplements.

   

   

  Council! It is undesirable to use wooden feeders for raw food. Remains of food will stick in hard-to-reach areas of the structure. Over time, they will begin to rot, infecting fresh food with pathogenic bacteria.
• Chickens must include mash in the diet. Plastic containers are ideal for wet food, as they are easier to clean from food debris. Steel containers are also suitable for these purposes, but ferrous metal tends to rust from moisture, and stainless steel is very expensive.
• Metal is appropriate to use in the manufacture of grass bins. Usually a V-shaped structure is made with a blank back wall made of tin. The front side is covered with rods or mesh.

Properly selected material for the feeder contributes to the preservation of food, and, therefore, its economy.

Difference in the way of feeding

The convenience of feeding the bird depends on how food is fed into the feeder. After all, it is much more convenient to feed chickens once a day than to run to the barn at short intervals.

According to the method of feeding feeders are divided into the following types:

• The simplest tray model is more suitable for feeding young animals. The design is a conventional container with sides that prevent food from spilling out. Most often, such feeders are given an elongated shape.
• Grooved models are equipped with a turntable or a delimiting removable grid. The internal part of the structure may have dividing partitions that form separate compartments for different feeds. Such feeders are usually placed outside the cage for adult chickens so that they can only reach food with their heads.
• Very good in terms of maintenance models of the bunker type. They are designed for filling dry compound feed and grain. Usually the size of the bunker is calculated on the daily supply of feed. From below, the structure is equipped with a tray into which food is poured out of the hopper as it is eaten by chickens.

The photo shows a good example of several types of chicken feeders. Automatic models are the same hopper feeders. They are simply called that because of the way they feed.

The difference in location in the poultry house

And the last thing chicken feeders can differ in is their location. Two types of structures are used in a chicken coop or cage:

• The floor type is convenient due to mobility. The container can, if necessary, be rearranged to any place in the chicken coop.
• The hinged type is fixed to the wall of the house or cage. Such feeders are convenient in terms of stability. In any case, the chicken will not be able to knock over the food container.

Sometimes poultry farmers practice the simultaneous use of both types of feeders. The convenience of feeding chickens is determined empirically, which depends on the breed of birds, age, as well as the characteristics of the premises for their maintenance.

What are the requirements for chicken feeders

There are few requirements for chicken feeders, and they are all aimed at economical use of feed, and ease of maintenance. Let’s look at three important points:

• The chicken feeding container must have a protective device that allows rational use of the feed. If the chicken has free access to food, she quickly rakes it, throws it out of the tank, plus droppings get into the feed. All sorts of turntables, nets, sides, jumpers and other devices prevent the bird from carelessly moving with grain.
• A good feeder is one that is easy to maintain. The container needs to be filled with food daily, as it gets dirty, it is cleaned and even washed. The material of the feeder and its design should contribute to ease of care. It is good if the container is collapsible, easy to wash and have a low weight.
• The volume of the container should be enough for at least one-time feeding of the livestock, and the dimensions are selected so that all chickens have free access to food. To calculate the length of the tray, a minimum of 10 cm is allotted for each adult chicken. Chickens will need 5 cm of space in the feeder. In circular trays, each chicken is given 2,5 cm of free space.

With any arrangement of feeders, they should be enough to feed all the chickens at the same time. If these conditions are not met, a strong bird will repel weak individuals from food.

Options for homemade chicken feeders

Now we will look at several common options for how to make a chicken feeder from materials lying around in almost every yard.

Vertical hopper from PET bottles

The simplest version of the bunker made of plastic bottles is shown in the photo. For one design, you need one container with a volume of 1,5, 2 and 5 liters. The production order is as follows:

• A feed hopper is made from a 1,5 liter bottle. To do this, the bottom is cut off, and holes with a diameter of about 20 mm are drilled in a circle near the neck.
• The bottom is cut off from a two-liter bottle, leaving a rim of about 10 cm on it. This will be the lid of the hopper.
• From a 5-liter bottle, the bottom is also cut off, leaving a side about 15 cm high on it. We have a container where the feed from the bunker will be poured. Now, a hole is drilled in the center of the cut bottom, the diameter of which is equal to the size of the threaded neck of a 1,5-liter bottle. Exactly the same hole must be made in a piece of plywood. It is needed for the stability of the feeder.
• Now all the details are connected together. The bottom of a 1,5 liter container is placed on the neck of a 5 liter bottle, then a piece of plywood, and all this is tightened with a cork. The feeder is ready.

We turn the design over so that the cork of the 1,5 liter bottle is at the bottom. So, we have a vertical bunker. Pour grains inside, and cover the reconciliation with a lid from the bottom of a 2 liter bottle. Through the holes near the neck, the food is poured into a container made from the bottom of a 5 liter bottle.

Two feeder options from a 5 liter bottle

A simple version of homemade chicken feeders is shown in the photo from a 5 liter bottle. Near the bottom, holes of arbitrary diameter are cut in a circle with a knife so that the food spills out. The bottle is placed in any bowl of larger diameter. With the help of copper wire, spacers are placed by piercing the side walls of the bottle and bowl. Food is poured into the bottle through the neck with the help of a watering can. It pours into the bowl through the holes made.

In the second version of the design, the bowl can be omitted. The holes are cut 15 cm above the bottom of the bottle. The window is made so large that a chicken’s head fits in there. Feed is poured through the neck, as in the previous design.

Bunker feeder for chickens

To make a bunker feeder for chickens with your own hands, you will need plywood or sheet steel. First, design drawings are drawn up. On a sheet of the selected material, draw the front wall of the bunker 40×50 cm in size, and the back wall 40×40 cm in size. Additionally, two identical cone-shaped parts are drawn from which the side walls will be made. For the lid, draw a rectangle larger than the top of the bin.

All parts are cut with a jigsaw. The plywood bunker is connected using hardware and rails. Steel fragments are welded by gas or electric welding. A slot is left at the bottom of the bunker for spilling feed. In the same part, an oblong tray is attached. For the convenience of filling the feed, the lid is hooked on hinges.

On the video, the bunker model of the feeder:

Automatic feeder made of PVC pipes

Excellent do-it-yourself feeders for chickens are made from PVC pipes used for the construction of sewers. The photo shows the horizontal and vertical version. In the first case, knees are put on both edges of a pipe with a diameter of 100–150 mm. This is where the food will go. In the side wall of the pipe, oblong windows are cut out through which the chickens will peck food. The structure is fixed horizontally to the wall with clamps.

For a vertical PVC feeder, pipes make a riser for filling grain. A tee and two knees are put on from below. This design is designed for two chickens. For one individual, instead of a tee, you can immediately put a knee on the pipe. In this case, you will have to collect a whole battery of such feeders by the number of heads.

On the video feeder and drinker for chickens:

grass hopper

For the manufacture of such a bunker, a welding machine and rods 6–8 mm thick are required. The photo shows an example of a grass feeder. For its manufacture from rods, a V-shaped bunker is welded. In the shed, it is simply attached to the wall or first fixed on plywood or sheet of tin, and then hooked to a permanent place. From below, under the bunker, you can make a tray so that small grass does not wake up on the floor.

Conclusion

All self-made feeders are convenient to use, as feed is fed into them automatically. Grain can be poured in the morning, going to work, and a new portion can be added in the evening.