How do you get water and food to your chickens? (Share your storys!)

[Mr MKK FARMS]

For feed I use a steel feeder (Holds the grain) from the feed store.


Has anyone built there own wooden feeder?

BTW
The bottoms of plastic milk jugs work great for holding water

 

[Trixy]

I build my own PVC pipe, gravity style feeders. They work perfectly at keeping the waste down and I can load 25 pounds of feed into each one and go camping for the weekend without worrying about food.

Since it's still freezing here overnight, I'm using a 3 gallon heated pan waterer, but in the summer I use the Brite Tap Chicken Waterer (http://www.chickenwaterer.com/) attached to one of our old Igloo insulated water jugs. I can even put in ice to cool down the water for the really hot days. LOVE IT!

Here pics of the feeders I built:
2 for food - 1 for oyster shell - 1 for grit

 

[Mr MKK FARMS]

How do you keep the mice out?

Good question. With my chickens I make my own wooden rat traps. Basically its a box with a tiny hole in one side so that the mice/rats can go in, and inside I have a bag of rat poison (Its a poison that thins out their blood and then they die) waiting for them. When they go in they eat the poison, but the hole isn't big enough for them to drag it out side (That way the chickens can't eat it). After a few hours the rat dies. You can find that poison at you local feed store or somewhere else like that. And the little boxes are easy to make and work great. We also have cats.

 

[Mr MKK FARMS]

I build my own PVC pipe, gravity style feeders. They work perfectly at keeping the waste down and I can load 25 pounds of feed into each one and go camping for the weekend without worrying about food.

Since it's still freezing here overnight, I'm using a 3 gallon heated pan waterer, but in the summer I use the Brite Tap Chicken Waterer (http://www.chickenwaterer.com/) attached to an Igloo insulated cooler. I can even put in ice to cool down the water for the really hot days. LOVE IT!

Here pics of the feeders I built:
2 for food - 1 for oyster shell - 1 for grit

WOW!!! I LOVE it. Where did you get the PVC piping from?

 

[Trixy]

Home Depot had everything I needed in the plumbing aisle...and they even have these cool little "plugs" that fit right inside where the food opening is, so I just pop those in at night to keep the mice out. I've had my girls since January and not a mouse to be found!

 

[Mr MKK FARMS]

Home Depot had everything I needed in the plumbing aisle...and they even have these cool little "plugs" that fit right inside where the food opening is, so I just pop those in at night to keep the mice out. I've had my girls since January and not a mouse to be found!

That is awesome!! Was the PVC piping pretty expensive though? (If I may ask)

 

[dogmehc]

I'm in the process of building my second coop and I'm looking to re-think my whole food/watering situation. Is anyone using the cup pictured below? I'd like to hook this up to a rain barrel, perhaps 30 gallon, or even 55 (if space permits), but I'm concerned that there won't be enough pressure for it. This cup says it requires a minimum of 10psi, and all I've read for rain barrels is 7psi for a 55-gallon drum.... Thoughts?

Here's the link for the cup, if you're interested.
http://www.amazon.com/Little-Giant-...TF8&colid=2UEZL1X1DETQO&coliid=I2O5ENMYKLXDJN

 

[rcdavis20]

I build my own PVC pipe, gravity style feeders. They work perfectly at keeping the waste down and I can load 25 pounds of feed into each one and go camping for the weekend without worrying about food.

Since it's still freezing here overnight, I'm using a 3 gallon heated pan waterer, but in the summer I use the Brite Tap Chicken Waterer (http://www.chickenwaterer.com/) attached to one of our old Igloo insulated water jugs. I can even put in ice to cool down the water for the really hot days. LOVE IT!

Here pics of the feeders I built:
2 for food - 1 for oyster shell - 1 for grit

I use 5 gal pails in my coop with bird bath heaters in the winter - works great. The side mounted nipples are spring loaded and don't leak...

 

[kuntrygirl]

I build my own PVC pipe, gravity style feeders. They work perfectly at keeping the waste down and I can load 25 pounds of feed into each one and go camping for the weekend without worrying about food. Since it's still freezing here overnight, I'm using a 3 gallon heated pan waterer, but in the summer I use the Brite Tap Chicken Waterer (http://www.chickenwaterer.com/) attached to one of our old Igloo insulated water jugs. I can even put in ice to cool down the water for the really hot days. LOVE IT! Here pics of the feeders I built: 2 for food - 1 for oyster shell - 1 for grit

I love the water cooler creation.

 

[gmendoza]

that will do good for a few birds, but I have about 30 fussy hens and a turkey henfrom 3 years ago. I have three (3') goat feeder troths. one filled with grit and calcium,one filled with corn,one filled with pellets.Rooster Cogburn died having a siesure after being stomped by our tom turkey.The turkey is doing fine in freezer camp.

Our waterer is a 55 gallon pickle barrel with a pvc jarting out the side of it and connecting to a tee, then going left and right at diffrent heights to accomodae the small and large.it has a drain fitting I can access from the outside.the pvc pipes have the drink nipples with the water cups underneath.I just fill the barrel every week.

But I enjoy going into the huge coop and feeding the girls.

the duck coop was converted to accomodate the bamtams. we have 9 now. Poor Sir Bok Bok met an untimely end fighting off a possum. He lost one girl to the vermin, and another girl got beat up but healed.He just got so tore up internally, that he turned weak and thin and died.