Chicken feeder — 90 photos of the best projects. Diagrams and drawings how to make with your own hands

Those who raise poultry know that this is a great way to get additional income and natural nutrition. Someone keeps chickens to get eggs, someone for meat, in any case, most of the maintenance costs are for feeding livestock. That is why the correct selection of the feeder system is very important for keeping chickens.

Summary of the article:

Poultry feeding plants are divided according to the source materials:

devices made of wood are suitable for dry feed mixtures: cereals, animal feed, minerals, shells;
plastic feeders or iron feeders are useful for using wet food, they are easy to clean and are not soaked with food;
a net or rods will come in handy when feeding fresh grass.

It is also possible to distinguish varieties by the type of feed supply:

trays are well suited as feeders for chickens. These are peculiar containers with sides so that the food does not spread out on the sides;
grooved with an additional limiter. Inside it can be divided into compartments for different types of feed. They are usually taken outside the cells to simplify maintenance;
hopper feeders are mainly for dry mixes. They are designed for infrequent filling, so that the chickens can be left for a while. The food remains clean and dry and is dosed.

You can place the device on the floor or hang it. The outdoor option is convenient if there is a need to move the feeder. The hinged container is attached to the walls from inside or outside the cells.

General requirements

To save feed, the first thing you need to pay attention to is that the chickens themselves could not get into the container and scatter the feed. In addition, it is necessary for its safety, so that excrement does not get into it. You can protect the grain with bumpers, limiters, or by taking the container itself out of the cage.

It is also necessary to remember that the container will have to be cleaned and filled daily, the design should not create obstacles to this. In general, you need to pay attention to the weight of the container and its volume (it should be enough for a day of feeding the entire livestock).

Approximately 15 centimeters of the length of the feeder is allocated for one bird, which should be enough for everyone so that weaker individuals do not remain hungry. If the cage contains only chicks, you can reduce this size.

How to make feeders yourself

Now you can buy a variety of types of feeding devices, however, homemade options are quite enough for the bird.

It will take quite a bit of time to make feeders with your own hands, but in financial terms the costs will decrease noticeably. To create such containers, you can use improvised materials: buckets, pipes, bottles, plywood and much more. Next, consider the possible options.

Plastic container

The most affordable option will be bottle feeders. If the walls of the container are dense and there is a side handle, then it is quite suitable. All that needs to be done is to make a hole at a distance of about eight centimeters from the bottom so that the bird has access to food, and a slot is placed on the handle of the bottle to hang the bottle on a grid or grate.

Hopper feeder

Bunker or automatic feeders greatly simplify the process of caring for poultry. Their principle is that the feed is dosed, as the bird eats the previous one. You will need a bucket (wet building mixes are usually sold in these) or, again, a large plastic water bottle and a menagerie, or the bottom from another bucket (the main thing is that their diameter exceeds the size of the first bucket by at least 10 centimeters).

At the bottom of the walls of the first bucket or bottle, holes are made for pouring feed into the departments of the menagerie. The parts are attached to screws or wire.

Simply put, a container with a smaller diameter with holes at the bottom is placed in a pallet with sides. When the chickens eat up the food, a little more is poured from the container into the pallet.

Feeders assembled from pipes

It will require PVC pipes approximately 15 cm in diameter, plugs and a tee-splitter, the length is the same as it will be more convenient. Ten- and twenty-centimeter segments are separated from the pipe, a K splitter and plugs are attached to the long part. The short part is attached to the branch (this will be a tray). The structure is suspended in a cage with a long edge up. It will always be possible to temporarily close access to the feed.

You can arrange several such structures or modify the feeder for a large number of birds. Then the pipe needs to be cut into 2 parts, one of them is 30 cm, they need to be connected with a plastic knee. In a short piece, the milling nozzle pours out two holes on both sides (diameter about 4 cm), through these places the bird will peck food, the remaining edges are closed with a plug.

Wooden containers

This option is somewhat more expensive, it will take:

plywood sheet
loops for right angle
sandpaper
screws
jigsaw
roulette
drill and drills
clips

We choose the size of the future device or use ready-made drawings. First of all, a sheet of plywood is drawn, then individual parts are cut out. Then, at the end of cutting the blanks, the necessary holes are made, including for countersunk screws.

All edges are cleaned with a skin, in order to avoid the birds getting hurt. Next, the sidewalls, the bottom and the front part of the structure are assembled. In front, it would be appropriate to use a transparent plastic plate to track the amount of remaining feed. On the front panel and the end, a fifteen-degree angle is filed from above and below, we fasten the parts and connect them to the sidewall.

A bar, sawn along at 30 degrees, is attached above the feed feed point. The lid is screwed on the hinges, for access to the stern. It is advisable to treat the structure with an antiseptic at the end.

You can do it easier and build a feeder from boards in the form of a long box, which is installed behind the cage. This allows you not to enter the chicken coop for feeding, the legs will remain clean.

A box of about 25 centimeters in height is built from the bars and sheathed with plywood or a board. The wall farthest from the birds is arranged with a slope. The distances between the bars of the cages should be sufficient so that the bird can easily stick out its head and peck at the food located outside.

The structure is covered with a lid made of wood or plywood on hinged hinges to protect the food from water or other hungry animals, such as mice. It is better to put a piece of linoleum on the bottom of the container, so it will be easier to maintain a wooden feeder. To better understand the manufacturing process of such structures, it is advisable to familiarize yourself with the photos of feeders for chickens.

The independent design of such containers has many advantages, compared with the purchase of ready-made devices.

Firstly, there is nothing complicated in the process itself, it does not require any special skills and anyone's help.
Secondly, serious financial savings, especially if you have a serious poultry population at your disposal.
Thirdly, the ideas of feeders can be gleaned from various sources and choose the most optimal for your convenience.

Any color, size, design is selected, everything can be adjusted to suit yourself, without wasting time and effort searching for the optimal solution in stores. Having created the right design with your own hands, you will not need to worry about the livestock during the day, you will always know that the bird has enough food and water and it is reliably protected.