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Home-Built Chicken Feeder Holds 150 Pounds Of Feed
Caleb Howerton, owner of Green Thicket Farm in Springfield, Mo., is always looking for ways to make farm chores more efficient. When he had an upcoming vacation planned, he decided to make a bulk chicken feeder for the farm’s flock of 100 laying hens to make chores easier on the farm sitter. The finished feeder holds 150 lbs. of feed, enough for several days.
    The materials Caleb used to build the feeder were all things he had handy in the farm scrap pile: an aluminum shelving unit, corrugated barn tin, and some 1 by 6 boards. He disassembled the shelving unit and restructured it to create the main hopper. Using the 1 by 6’s, he made a base that was 6 in. wider than the feed box to create a tray for the feed. He added a 2-in. lip onto the tray to prevent feed from spilling out onto the ground.
    Next, he took the uprights from the shelving unit and bent them into semi-circles, and attached tin to the uprights with self-tapping screws to create a cover for the feed hopper. The feed hopper was then screwed to the base. Using a large hinge, the cover was attached to the top of the box, and two spring latches were attached to the front and the back of the cover – one latch is used to keep the feeder closed, and the other latch is to keep the cover open when refilling or cleaning the feeder. Finally, Caleb drilled three 1-in. holes into each side of the base to allow the feed to trickle out for the chickens.
     Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Caleb Howerton, Green Thicket Farm, 1008 E Farm Rd. 54, Springfield, Mo. 65803.


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2017 - Volume #41, Issue #4