Friday, July 27, 2012

DIY Chicken Feeder

Watch out. This is state of the art.

Take an old plastic pot you find in your garage (or shed, or refuse pile, or nursery) and dust it off. Make sure it's one that has the big water escape holes in the sides, as opposed to holes drilled on the bottom.


Affix a plate section (under section? What are those things called?) of another cast off pot with four perfectly placed screws using a screw driver and brute strength. So it looks like so.


Drill 3 or 4 holes around the top of the plastic pot and then remove the screws. Because you change your mind about how to affix the CLOTHES HANGER to the feeder.

Then, um, either use a clothes hanger or a rustled up metal hanger from yet another cast off pot to hang the thing with.






Fill with feed and as the chickens eat it down in the trough area, it will start falling out of the holes to fill the trough back up.

Why I didn't think about making a bigger feeder before to accommodate my many new hens is beyond me. Sometimes I think we just get caught up in the minutia of everyday things and get used to filling two feeders everyday. Then BLAM, inspiration strikes during nap time and you basically rock the whole thing out in 10 minutes. Or whatever.

By the by, our lusty busty hen is going to meet her end today. She just eats TOO much and I can't keep up with it. Plus, um, she's huge. Staggeringly big. And she is incredibly loud. We are moving soon and I can't take the risk that her loudness might jeopardize the other chickens in some way (ie - annoying redneck neighbors calling the city to complain, thus getting me in trouble with the landlord.) Plus, her feed to egg ratio is out of whack, as well - namely, too much feed for egg production. This is why we like egg layers vs meat birds for eggs. Egg layers eat less food and have a superior feed to egg conversion (the amount of feed it takes to generate one egg is a certain smaller amount than for meat birds).

I like her, but that has nothing to do with it. She was bought to be food, and she has had a great life so far and will meet a very humane and quiet end.

Now, what kind of chicken dinner to make for next week's Wednesday fresh foods blog hop? Hmmm.....


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